“Everything?”
He nodded.
“Even that cape?”
He made to undo it, and she gripped his wrists to stop him, laughing. “Gold isn’t my color,” she said casually.
His voice wasn’t casual at all as he said, “It was. Once.”
Isla’s expression turned serious as she looked out at the horizon. He wondered if she was remembering the same moment he was. When she had invited him to gild the dress she wore. Her faith in him had let him conquer his fears, his trauma. He had painted her gold, and he had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.
“I see it so clearly,” she said. “Our life together. If things. If...” She smiled, as if she was seeing it in her head.
“Isla. We have everything we need. But to get to you, we need your Wildling abilities. We need you to restore the bonds.” Her jawset. Her eyes did not leave the sea. “I know you asked us not to come. Have you changed your mind?”
She was the missing piece. In the silence, his chest was clenched in panic. What if she still insisted on keeping them out? What if she was set on sacrificing herself?
Waves crashed upon their feet. A salty breeze wove through their hair.
Finally, she faced him and said, “I have. Tomorrow. Will you be ready?”
His relief nearly sent him to his knees. “Yes.” He wanted to hug her, realizing he couldreallybe touching her in just a matter of hours. They could be together outside of their heads. But Isla’s expression turned heavy. “What is it?”
“I’m only bringing one of you,” she said.
Oro frowned. “Butbothof us—”
“Someone has to stay behind. You can’t both leave, since I’m already gone, too. What if—what if—”
What if something happened to all their people, were the words she didn’t say.
Oro closed his eyes tightly. He, more than anyone, understood her reasoning.
“Have you made your choice?” he asked when he finally opened his eyes.
“No,” she said, and he tasted sweetness. She was telling the truth.
He took a deep breath. Something in him, and in the way she said her words, made it feel like more than just a decision on who she thought could help her defeat Cronan. It seemed almost final.
“Then I guess, I hope to see you soon,” he said, before the dream washed away in a wave of salt-slick sea.
ORO
She’s only choosing one of us to go through the portal,” Oro told Grim the very next morning. The sun bled along the horizon behind the tide pools where Grim had just portaled them. He recounted everything Isla had said in his dream.
If the Nightshade was upset that Isla had visited him again, he didn’t show it. He only said, “We obviously both feel it should be ourselves.”
Oro sighed. “What we feel doesn’t matter. She’s the one reopening the bridge—it needs to be her choice.”
Despite the truth in his words, Oro desperately hoped she would choose him. She alreadyhadchosen him, after the Centennial. But was that a decision made out of affection or hurt, after being betrayed by Grim?
Oro burned the thought. It had been real, he was certain. He knew truth better than anyone else, and not one moment between them had been false.
They had beenhappy.
Until she had started to remember.
At the end of the war, she had made a different choice—to stay with Grim. But she had been trying to save Oro, and everyone else. In that case, was it even a choice at all?
