“What if she’s seen it?” Grim asked.
Cronan shook his head. “I’ve been through her entire mind. I would have known.”
Grim was foolish enough to feel a bite of sympathy for the Wildling. That one instant of Cronan’s shadows in his brain had felt worse than some torture he’d endured. Cronan had only gone through a few days’ worth of Grim’s memories. A lifetime?
How had she not broken yet?
No. He refused to feel sympathy for the woman who would be his downfall. He had seen it with his own eyes. She was destined to kill him. He didn’t care that there was another equally possible future.
As long as she existed, she was as much of a threat to him and his realm as Cronan.
ISLA
Isla sat with her back against the damp wall of her cell. Cronan had given her an impossible choice. Join them...or die. Choose to abandon her world and all its people. Choose to kill Oro instead of her husband, who didn’t even remember her and was actively trying tokill her.
Or take her last breath here, by Cronan’s hands.
Neither option saved the people she loved. She had traveled here for more options, for more chances at survival. To bring back those she had lost. To save herself.
She wished she could forget how hopeful she felt when she had finally seen Grim crash into the galaxy room. He had been there to save her, and together, they would have saved everyone.
Now all that foolish hope had been extinguished. She pressed her lips against a sob.
“Finally realized that no one is coming to save you?”
Lark. Her voice was a scratch along the stone wall. Air wheezed through her words, as if her throat was still gaping.
Isla said nothing.
Lark managed a scoff. “It took me years to lose hope. But I suppose it’s foolish to expect anything resembling strength from you.”
Her ancestor’s words sank right through her armorless skin.
Without waiting for a reply, Lark continued, “You think this cell is bad?” Her laugh was half-crazed. “Imagine being buried miles below ground.”
At that, Isla’s head snapped up. “I don’t have to imagine.Youburied me.”
“That wasnothingcompared to my tomb.” Her green eyes glowed through the dark. “You were there for meredays. I was imprisoned for thousands of years. In metal that was molded to my body so that I didn’t even have an inch to move or breathe. No power. No light.Nothingbut the darkness.”
Isla swallowed. As hopeless as she felt in this moment...she couldn’t imagine that existence. Unable to die. Death, in that state, would have been a mercy.
“The only thing that kept me going was the promise of vengeance,” she continued. “And now...look at me.”
Lark was ancient, and unbelievably powerful. Isla had seen everything she was capable of. “So why haven’t you at least tried to break out yet?”
Her ancestor turned to her, catching the sliver of moonlight coming in from far above. Isla swallowed. Lark’s face was half-gone. One of her eyes was hanging where her ear should have been. Her throat was in tatters. Her chest was gaping open, her organs shoved crudely together. “Does it look like I’m capable of breaking out of anything?”
Isla took a shaking breath. Her ancestor’s condition was worsening.
Anything can be broken. Even Lark, it seemed.
“Why can’t you break through his hold on your powers?” Isla demanded. If only they could find a way to reclaim their abilities, they might be able to escape. Together, they might be able to stop him.
Lark shook her head. “You don’t understand. Cronan’s tie to this world is deep rooted.”
“But you’re from this world, too,” Isla countered.
“Yes, but this is not the same world I left,” Lark said. “I’ve been away for thousands of years. And in that time, Cronan has poisoned it against everyone but him.”
