Page 76 of Grim and Oro (Lightlark)

ASHES

It’s not there.

We went right into enemy territory, Vinderland lands, and the heart of Lightlark was not in the final place. We were wrong.

I was wrong.

I watch Isla bang her fists against the ice, screaming in rage. I want to do the same thing, but I fear it would bring the entire island down. The depths of my anger and sadness, built up over the centuries and buried, might be enough to destroy this world, if let out.

Isla starts to cry.

She lets me lift her from the ice. Soon we’re back to the castle. She shakes slightly in my arms, and what is this rage, building within me?

What is this despair, unspooling?

She doesn’t even look at me, when I leave her on the balcony. She just goes into her room and closes the door behind her.

Don’t give up yet , I want to tell her, even though I’m ready to do the same.

But for some reason, the thought of that flame within her extinguishing is too painful to imagine.

She came to this island with her soul blazing. I could see it, even on the first day.

I’m losing her little by little. The light in her eyes is almost gone.

How to fix it?

How to make that fire within her grow?

I return to my room. This can’t be the end. There are still twenty days left of the Centennial. The island might not last that long, but we have to try.

I want to go to her room, I want to get to her before that fire dies, but I’m nothing to her. If anything, I have snuffed that fire out.

I regret every cruel thing I ever said. Any sharp remark. All thorns, trying to protect myself from the painful and arduous process of opening up my heart.

“So, what do we do now?” Enya asks. She’s frowning, but she doesn’t look surprised.

She never thought my plan would work. She thought I was clinging to an impossible scenario. Perhaps I shouldn’t have spent so many decades on this strategy. Perhaps, if I had been more capable, I could have gone down a different road. One that would have worked.

“Say our goodbyes?” Zed responds unhelpfully, using his wind to throw daggers against the wall.

“Speak for yourself,” Enya says.

I whirl to face her. “You have time?”

She dips her chin. “I do.”

I do .

Then she doesn’t die this way. Or at least ... that isn’t her previous fate.

I wonder about the oracle’s prophecies. Can they change? Everything I’ve read says every single prophecy has always come to pass, but these are uncertain times. Do the curses take precedent?

My life is bound to hers.

If she doesn’t die now, then it means we do it, don’t we? We figure it out?

“Tell me,” I say, begging. “Please. This—this could be important.”

Enya sighs. “My answer is never going to change, Oro,” she says. Her smile is sad. She places her hand on my shoulder.

“I live past the hundred days. Happy?”

Yes .

“You couldn’t have told us that before?” Zed snaps.

She shoots him a look. “I don’t know as much as you think I do. Just ... a few details. I didn’t really know what they meant for a long time. The circumstances ... the timing ... but I do now.” She doesn’t say anything else.

But Enya’s words spark an ember of hope. All is not lost. Somehow, we will figure it out.

“Calder.” I turn to my friend. “I need your help.”

We go back to Moon Isle, where we’ve been countless times since my training. We go to the Vinderland territory, a place few would dare return.

The place we first became friends.

When I was here with Isla, they attacked us. Isla fought back. We both did. We both killed several of their people, in self-defense.

And I killed even more of them before, when they captured her.

They hate us more than ever. But they might be the key to finding the heart.

Perhaps they took it from the roots in the tree, or even from the abandoned castle. Perhaps they’ve seen it.

Calder knows every inch of this isle. He’s searched for the heart before without success, but the Vinderland know this land better than even Cleo.

The Vinderland are fractured, according to Calder. There is a small, rebellious sect that split from its leadership.

They are our best bet.

We’ve stopped in front of a cave with hundred-foot icicles sticking from it, like a beast’s back.

“Here,” Calder says. He lifts his arm, and the snow parts, making a door.

Someone is already standing there. A man wearing a saber-toothed leopard as a hide and wielding a sword made of sharpened ice.

He’s baring his teeth. “Didn’t kill enough of my men?” He’s looking at me.

I glare at him, remembering how they came from the trees. Remembering how they almost hurt her.

“We didn’t kill anyone that didn’t try to kill us first.”

“Anyone that steps onto our territory is sentenced to death.” He looks us over, his eyes lingering on Calder, who towers over him. “Which makes you both fools for being here.”

I’m king of the island. This is Moonling land. None of that matters to this Vinderland, whose teeth have been sharpened into spikes.

“I’m hoping we can work together,” I say. “I’m looking for something. Help me find it, and we can discuss anything you want. Land. Resources. Nothing is off the table.”

The Vinderland shakes his head. He licks the points of his teeth.

“What makes you think we want any of that?”

I shrug. “I’m not sure what you want. But if you help me, whatever is in my power to give, I’ll give to you.”

It’s a foolish offer, but these are desperate times. The days are almost done. I am close to death, my strength quickly dwindling.

“And what if it’s something even you , King, cannot give me?”

I frown. “What is it you want?”

“I want the Wildling.”

The snow beneath me begins to melt.

He takes a step toward me. “I want to drain her of every drop of blood in her body. I want to rip out every strand of hair. I want to peel her skin off, coil by coil. I want to drink her power straight from her skull. I—”

His throat is in my fist before I realize what I’m doing. My hand is so hot with fury that his skin burns right off, his bone cracks and splinters, his eyes bulge and burst, before my fire burns through his throat and spinal cord completely.

His head falls to the snow. His body falls in the opposite direction.

Calder sighs. “That’s one way to start a war.”

I pant, rage coursing through my veins. I burn the rest of his body, unsatisfied until every trace of him is gone.

“They’re going to come for you. His sect. They’ll know you’re looking for something. They’ll know you killed him,” Calder says.

“Let them come,” I tell him, and then I turn my back to the ashes.