With a sigh, Grim got to his feet. Enough wallowing. Now, it was time to figure out how to make a portal to another world and get to his wife. Oro stood too.
“Truce?” Grim asked, holding out his hand.
Oro just stared at it.
Grim rolled his eyes. “I won’t try to kill you, unless it helps me get to her.”
Oro stared at him blankly. Grim knew he could sense the honesty in his words, which, according to his emotions, wasn’t making him feel even remotely assured. Still, the Sunling sighed deeply, then his hand clasped Grim’s. “Truce,” he said.
“Good.” Grim rolled his shoulders back and straightened. “I’m going back to Nightshade to see what I can find. I’ll be back when I have something.”
He dropped Oro’s hand—and was gone.
ORO
Oro was pacing back and forth in his throne room, a path of flames erupting from his every step across the gilded floor. Isla was clearly in trouble, and Oro felt like he was coming apart at the seams at not being able to help her. He needed to figure out how to open the portal in the tidepool, but where to start? Grim had left for Nightshade hours ago, after they had exhausted every theory, every resource...
The only other thing they had were these useless threads. They glimmered in his palm, coarse and heavy. That was about all they had done since he had gotten them. So far, Oro had no idea why they had been valuable enough for his father to spend almost his entire reign searching for them. Or dangerous enough to be hidden miles beneath the sea.
Oro had scoured his library for any information that could guide him, but he had no luck. He tried funneling power into the threads—nothing. He was a moment from throwing the damned things across the room—
When his finger caught one of the threads, causing it to unravel. He made to push it back in—
And heard voices. His head snapped up, expecting to see his friends walking inside. But these weren’t his friends.
The people striding confidently into his throne room were strangers.
They were clearly Sunlings, dressed in gold. But their clothing was a style he had never seen before, the glistening fabrics whisperingagainst the floor and flowing behind them like liquid gold. They continued their conversation as if Oro wasn’t standing right in front of them—in fact, they walked straight toward him as if he wasn’t in the room. He was about to protest, when they passed right through him, their bodies turning to glittering wisps of sand and smoke before reforming again behind him, like specters.
What was this?
They murmured, but Oro couldn’t make out their words. It sounded like everything was underwater. Then the chatter abruptly stopped, and everyone turned toward the throne room’s entrance.
A towering man with golden hair walked through the doors. He strode with purpose, right to the throne. Oro had seen enough portraits in the hall to know exactly who this was.
Horus Rey. His ancestor. One of the founders of the island.
Oro hurried to unravel more of the threads, faster this time, to test a theory, and the people around him disappeared in long columns of gold smoke. As he unwound, years flitted across his vision, the room changing, people traveling in and out. His mind burned, his eyes straining to take it all in. His body felt pulled forward, as if he was being dragged through a thick current.
Until he paused his thumb, and everything around him settled once more.
Oro’s heart wrenched as he recognized the woman in front of him. His mother was standing just a few feet away, younger than he had ever seen her. She was holding a glimmering sword and speaking to a man—his father. Oro couldn’t hear his response, but it looked like he was pleading with her.
His mother turned on her heel, and his father followed her like a lost creature, his expression pure adoration. Oro blinked in surprise. He knew that they’d had a great love story when they met. But he had only seen their relationship many years later, when all of that warmth had been extinguished. Had his father’s insistence on finding theThreads of Time pushed her away? Had it turned him into the cold and unimpressed father Oro had known as a child?
He—
“What are you doing?”
A voice clear as day startled him into dropping the threads on the floor. In an instant—his parents were gone.
Enya was in front of him, frowning down at the pile of gold string. “What is that?”
Warily, he bent to pick it up and winced. His head was throbbing. His body felt heavy and worn out, like he had been swimming for hours. Still, the threads gleamed on the floor, as if in invitation.
“It...controls time. Supposedly,” he said. His voice sounded ragged.
Enya lifted a brow. “Supposedly?”
