Oro was seeing a dark cell. Through the dim lighting, he could make out a mangled Lark, propped in the corner.
He was seeing...Isla’s hands. He would recognize them anywhere. They were being dragged forward by a towering knight in shining shademade armor.
He saw flashes of a hallway made up of ancient rock. Then he saw a circular room, with purple and blue swirls of a galaxy out the window.
Then...his face.
Cronan. It had to be him. The resemblance to Grim was uncanny, but Cronan had a bottomlessness to his eyes, like they were made up of pure darkness.
He wore a crown that looked like a mess of broken blades.
Lynx growled beneath him; the creature’s muscles wound tight. Oro didn’t say a word, he didn’t move, in fear that it would stop the vision. He searched wildly for any details that could help them from here. He watched powerlessly as shadows burst forth from the crown, headed right toward Isla.
She screamed on impact. Oro gasped, and the image was ripped away. Thepain—
Lynx had stopped. Oro blinked, the field returning. In front of him, Grim and Wraith were landing. The Nightshade looked pleased. Oro saw the glimmer of something in the grass between them. Lynx and Wraith must have found it at the same time—Isla’s storm ring. Orocould barely summon a shred of relief, still filled with the echoes of Isla’s agony.
Grim sensed Oro’s panic instantly. “What is it?”
Oro slid down Lynx’s back...then turned toward the creature. The panther’s eyes were wide with concern.
“I...I saw her,” Oro said. “He showed me. His connection to her...it must be going in and out. He’s seeing almost everything.”
Grim strode toward them. “I wonder if the connection goes both ways.”
ISLA
A storm rattled the castle. Bits of rock in the dungeon fell atop her head, waking her.
Her power flooded back into her at once. She tried to smash the cell bars to pieces—but no matter how much energy she summoned, her abilities died as soon as they reached the metal.
Shademade. Of course. It was threaded even through the walls. But the skyre she had carved into her skin to get past the metal’s block in the maze didn’t work here. No, this material was altered, as if it had been infused with Cronan’s own void-like force. It didn’t matter that she could use her powers inside if the box she was in was impenetrable.
She slumped down to the floor, ignoring Lark’s labored breathing as her broken body began regenerating. But not completely. It was like the shadows Cronan had used to tear her apart were still threaded through her bones, keeping her from completely healing, even now.
It wasn’t long until Isla was back in Cronan’s galaxy room, staring up at the stars. He was making his way through her memories, and she was trying her best to keep him from seeing that the night before, she had found a way to visit Grim and Oro in their dreams.
He couldn’t know they were close to finding a portal and intent on using it to come to Skyshade for her.
So, she gave him other memories, trying to distract his piercing shadows. And he went through them with fervor, twisting and distorting each as he went. She tried to fight it, tried to keep them whole and correct. But he seemed to revel in the battle between their minds, and he aways won. He would reshape moments beyond recognition.
Worse—sometimes, he would simply shred them apart.
It took all of her strength to keep fighting back, through the agony—and every time she slipped, another memory was destroyed.
With Grim. With Oro.
With her people.
Gone.Gone.
She nearly passed out from the pain more than once, but he kept her awake. He kept her mind wide open.
Give up. Give up. Give up, his shadows sang as they barreled against her walls relentlessly. As they tore and mauled and destroyed.
She imagined the silver pool. She fought to center herself in this chaos, remembering what Oro had said about being strong.
She tried anything she could to hold on, but those memories had been her anchors, her most prized possessions, hereverything.
