But his heart was not only Isla’s. It belonged to his friends too.
Enya. Flashes of their friendship chiseled through his vision, chipping away at his devastation. That love stretched like roots to ground him, pushing away the anger and pain that were fueling his powers.
Enya collapsed on the ground, her red hair gleaming against the sand. Was this how she died? No.No.
He crashed down to the beach, his tempest suddenly falling around him. He knelt at Enya’s side, flipping her onto her back desperately. She looked so still—had he done it? Had he really killed her? Orocouldn’t breathe over the panic clutching his heart, at the horror of his actions, as—
Enya coughed. Oro could see the slightest rise and fall of her chest. She was alive, but barely.
He nearly wept in relief as he pulled her toward him. Only then did he remember that they had not been alone....
Cinder and Maren. Zed and Calder.
He looked toward where the cliff had been and spotted them hovering on a slice of wind Zed had summoned. Without the Skyling, they would have all fallen into the sea along with the rocks. They would havedied. Maren was holding an unconscious Cinder in her arms—the energy she had used to make the portal must have made her faint. The Starling looked at him, eyes hard and serious. She had seen everything.
I know what it’s like to lose control, he had told her.
He had been referring to what happened centuries ago. Oro was supposed to be better than that now. But this...
He looked around at the destruction he had made. At the scar he had left on this island he ruled. He had nearly...he had nearly...
He couldn’t let this happen again.
Oro was ready to smother his powers, to bury the memories with Isla, to put it all in a box and hide it in the darknest corner of his mind, just as he had centuries before, when he had lost control.
But then, the tide pool rippled. Oro frowned, looking into it.
A form began to emerge, taking shape, and he almost allowed himself to hope that it was her. That she was safe. That they had managed to overpower Cronan and return.
Instead, a claw reached out from the depths of the pool. Another.
And the water shattered as a creature burst through its depths with a sky-splitting roar.
ISLA
Grim was coming after her. She could feel his power careening toward her like a darkness that could smear the sun from the sky.
He didn’t remember her.
This couldn’t be real. She wanted to believe it was a nightmare, another one of Cronan’s mind games. But she had seen the cold disinterest in Grim’s eyes. She had felt the emptiness where their love had once lived.
Cronan’s words were clear. Grim’s memories of her weren’t just hidden, they weregone. For good.
Grim would have killed her if the storm hadn’t formed in time for her to deflect his shadows. She had waited until the very last moment to block them, so sure in their love, inhim, up until it almost caused both their ruin.
And now, his shadows were closing in. She soared higher, fleeing her husband until she felt the rumble of thunder in her bones. As portals split the sky into open seams and creatures began to emerge, Isla scanned the night for a smaller swirl that wouldn’t take her to another world, just miles away from here. Like the portal she had escaped through when the knights found her and Lark in the ash desert.
There. With Grim’s shadows at her heels, she flew with all her speed, pushing herself harder and faster, until she shot through a glimmering whorl of color—and was gone.
She crashed hard into a sand dune, her body tumbling head over heels until she finally lost momentum. She gasped, coughing up the dust she inhaled on impact. Her throat burned. She sat up, retching.
Her armor had been strewn across the sands. As the storm above her began to vanish, she used the last dregs of her Starling energy to melt the metal down into a bracelet of plate-like scales that clinked alongside the one her mother had left for her. There they were. Her last two remaining possessions.
Slowly, she stood, taking in the endless sea of sand and ash around her.Not again, she thought. She had no water, no weapon, no destination. The portal was now closed above her, and away from the storm, she had no powers either.
But then she noticed something in the distance. A crater, with flashes of green and blue. Another vision? No. She blinked, and it was still there.
A village? An oasis in this endless desert?
