She clawed at the floorboards like an animal, as if she could claw her way out of this room, out of thislife. Like if she just wished hard enough, someone would hear her and give her what she wanted—freedom.
She dragged her hands across the panel—and one of its corners lifted.
Isla froze, shooting a look at the door. It was closed. Terra and Poppy wouldn’t be back until the next morning for training. With trembling fingers, she slowly lifted the floorboard high. Higher.
Until it revealed a hidden compartment.
And she knew in her very soul that this was something left behind by her mother. Forher. Isla reached inside...and pulled out a long, thin stick made of a strange material. It looked almost like her mother’spaintbrush, without the end. It glimmered in her hand, shining silver before settling.
She felt a jolt, as if her blood was called to it.
She dropped the stick, and it clattered to the floor, rolling a few feet away. But...but for a moment...she saw it. A tiny window.
The flash of somewhere else completely.
Slowly, she reached for the stick again and pressed its point to the floor. There was a burst of sparks before a keyhole formed, and she knelt, pressing her eye to it.
There, she glimpsed a world with land that sloped high into the clouds. Mountains. She had only ever seen pictures of them in one of the books she got as a reward for training. Their tops were covered in white—snow, Isla realized. She wondered if it was as cold to the touch as her books said.
She spent the entire night looking through the keyhole, into another world, and, for the first time, she didn’t feel alone.
Isla awoke from the memory to blinding pain and darkness.
Lark was killing her. That was her first thought. She seized, reaching for her sword—only for her vision to clear enough to see her ancestor had it in her hand.
She wasn’t about to kill Isla with it, though. She was battling something above her.
“Nice of you to wake up,” Lark spat. Her teeth gritted as she fought off a human-like creature with pallid skin, sharp claws, and fangs that were already dripping blood. It wore tattered green fabric and snarled at Lark.
Isla blinked—and the beast became a beautiful woman, with long, smooth hair, glimmering skin, and eyes like diamonds.
But in the next instant, the creature was back, slashing her claws across Lark’s chest. Isla’s ancestor folded over, the sword held looselyin front of her. She was either too weakened from this world and her injuries to fight, or she had never been skilled with weapons at all, having always relied on her powers.
Isla was no stranger to powerlessness. And perhaps that would now be the key to their survival.
She raced forward, wincing as she realized the blood on the creature’s teeth hadn’t been just from Lark. Her calf was torn almost completely. But she had been trained to fight, even with injuries.
She reached her arm out. “Throw it!” she said.
Lark hesitated. The creature lurched forward, and the Wildling wasn’t able to block it before it sank its teeth into her shoulder.
She bellowed and heaved the sword to Isla.
Isla caught it. She smiled, feeling the metal against her palm.
With one fluid arch, the creature’s head was on the ground.
Isla folded over. That one simple movement had cost her, and she panted. This entire planet was like a poison, draining both her powers and strength. She stared at the body, now motionless on the ground, remembering the flash of what she had seen. The bitter luster of this place clearly wasn’t just affecting her.
“They weren’t always like this,” Isla said, and Lark scoffed as she pressed a hand to her shoulder.
Of course, Lark already knew that. She must have seen them when they were the glimmering beings Isla had only glimpsed.
Cronan hadn’t only disrupted this world...he had cursed it. Isla could feel the sheen of darkness everywhere, like everything that had dared to survive had been changed. Distorted.
Would that happen to them, if they stayed here long enough?
Lark looked like she was going to say something. Perhaps make a comment about what this world used to be like. But the moment her lips parted—
