Isla flew down from the sky, carried by Ciel and Avel, who each gripped her beneath a shoulder. Before, she would have been afraid of the height. Now, she didn’t have room for such a simple fear. She landed on Cleo’s castle steps and within minutes was surrounded by white-wearing guards. They had sloshing water pouches along their hips, water ready to wield into weapons.
Cleo came sweeping down from one of the highest balconies of the castle, on the back of a waterfall. When she landed, the water froze, a wide white halo around her feet. “The brave little Wildling,” she said. “What have you come to crow?”
“Stay,” Isla said.
The Moonling looked intrigued. “Here I was, thinking we were enemies.”
“You’re not my enemy,” Isla said. “I’ve watched your every move. You always do what’s best for your realm. Leaving Lightlark would be a mistake.”
“Would it?” she said, seeming bored.
“Lightlark is the base of your abilities. If you leave and Lightlark falls, your people won’t last.”
Cleo almost smiled. Surprisingly, it didn’t look cruel. Her expression, more than anything, seemed sad. “You know so little,” she said, her voice empty of any contempt. “You assume you know my motivations. You assume your facts are truth.”
Isla narrowed her eyes. “You found something out before the last Centennial. That’s why you didn’t attend. That’s why you’ve been building ships. That’s why you are considering evacuating your people from Lightlark. Isn’t it?”
Cleo said nothing. The Moonling only tilted her head at Isla, as if appraising a dull rock, searching for any hidden glint.
Isla took a step forward. “Answer me,” she yelled, and thorns grew around her wrists, out of nowhere, trailing down to the floor.
A dozen Moonling guards surrounded her in seconds. Avel and Ciel were at her sides, each of their hands on her arms, ready to fly her to safety. She had her starstick just in case. She felt invincible.
The Moonling frowned at the thorns dripping from Isla’s palms. “What a waste,” Cleo said, then she turned toward the massive, frozen doors of her palace.
“We could work together,” Isla said.
That made the Moonling stop in her tracks. She turned around, the hem of her white dress hissing across the iced-over stone.
Isla took her chance. “Wildlings and Moonlings are more similar than you might like to imagine,” she said. “You have frozen, infertile lands. We have started to learn how to grow crops again. We could help you, so you don’t have to rely on fishing. You can vary your diets.” Lately, Moonlings weren’t seen in the markets. They had almost completely cut themselves off from the other realms.
The Moonling’s expression remained as still as the frost beneath her feet. Unconvinced.
“We are also healers,” she said. “The elixir I demonstrated during the Centennial—we know how to make it. Between your people’s natural healing abilities and the ones we can extract from nature, we could mend almost anything.”
Cleo stared at her for a moment. Another. Then, she turned away again.
“What happened?” Isla asked. “What happened a century ago? Why didn’t you attend the fourth Centennial?”
At that, ice swept across the isle. It rippled in every direction and hardened beneath Isla’s feet. She had to sprout vines from her hands to root her in place, to keep from slipping. Ciel and Avel braced her sides, wind circling around their bodies to keep them still.
Cleo turned. “You dare ask me a question like that?”
Isla took a step forward, beyond her Skyling guards, her roots digging into the ice, keeping her grounded. “I do,” she said. “Something happened. What was it?”
For the fraction of a second, Isla caught a sliver of real emotion that made its way past the Moonling’s normally icy mask. Pain.
Cleo could feel pain?
“We both want the same thing. For our realms to survive.
We can help each other.” Cleo looked doubtful, and Isla growled. “I know you hate me, but you love your people. Do it for them.”
To her immense surprise, the Moonling smirked. “I don’t hate you,” she said. Then she turned, and the ice around her retracted, curling back to its source.
Only when she was almost at the palace’s front doors did Isla hear the Moonling ruler say, “I’ll consider it,” before sweeping inside.
Grim was coming to destroy Lightlark in twenty-nine days.
From her vision, she had figured an attack was inevitable, but that didn’t help the pain of knowing someone she once cared about was set on destroying everything she now loved.
Oro was irrevocably connected to Lightlark, as king. If the island fell . . . so would he.
All representatives were called for a meeting first thing the next morning. Isla hadn’t told Oro about her visit to Cleo the night prior. As she watched the door, her hope the Moonling would stay withered. Grim’s declaration of an attack was the perfect excuse for Cleo to leave Lightlark once and for all, on her ships. The Moonling newland was well established and not under threat. It would be so easy for Cleo to take her people and flee.
They couldn’t leave. If the other realms went to war with Nightshade they would need Moonlings and their healers more than ever.
Enya was at her side, curling and uncurling her fingers. Anxiety spiraled through the room. The same people from the dinner were present now, but this time there were no floating foods or flame-trimmed goblets, or fish trapped in ice.
This time, instead of whispers, there was only silence.
The clock began to chime, marking the hour.
Just before the last ring, Cleo swept into the throne room, and Isla tried her best not to fall out of her chair in surprise. The Moonling ruler had listened.
She had stayed.
Soren’s cane cracked against Cleo’s icy wake as they both made their way to their seats.
Oro did not waste a moment. “We have twenty-nine days before Lightlark is under siege. Twenty-nine days to figure out how to stop Grim.”
Silence broke open, and questions spilled over.
“Can he even do that?”
“Does he control the winged beasts from the coronation attack?”
“It’s five realms against one; we can protect the island, can’t we?”
“What did he mean ‘new future’?”
One of Isla’s necklaces sat heavy against her throat as she swallowed, seeing flashes of her vision.
Grim could do it. Grim could destroy them all.
She blinked and found Cleo watching her intently. The Moonling wasn’t focused on the lively debate around her. She was just staring at Isla, the specter of a smile on her mouth, the look of someone who knew a secret.
“Yes?” Cleo said suddenly, responding to Oro, because apparently, she had been listening. Her eyes remained fixed on Isla’s.
“Is the oracle awake?” Oro asked.
She shook her head. “I visited the moment I returned to the isle, and she refused to thaw.”
There was muttering. Heat flamed from Oro, but he moved on to his next question. “How many healers do you have?” Oro asked.
“Nearly a hundred on Lightlark. Triple that on the newland,” Cleo answered.
Isla jumped in. “Combined with our healing elixirs, we’ll be able to heal almost any injury. We’ll start producing more right away.” Her back was straight. She glanced at Soren, daring him to question her the way he had at the last dinner. He said nothing.
“Both will be critical,” Azul said. He trailed his gem-covered fingers across the table and shook his head. “If Grim is taking on all other realms, he must be well equipped, and determined. He must want something. This isn’t just about destroying the island, or he would have done it during the curses, when we were most vulnerable.”
For a moment, Oro’s eyes flicked to Isla. She knew what he thought.
Grim wanted her.
No. If this was about wanting her, he could have appeared at this very moment and taken her. She agreed with Azul. There was a purpose for Grim’s destruction. If they knew what it was, perhaps they could stop him.
Oro’s gaze was pure fire. “Whatever he wants, his intent is clear. He is coming to destroy us. We need to use every resource we have, every bit of ability.” He addressed them all. Heat scorched the room. “This is our home. It is our future. Our power lives here. Without the island, our realms will die. We have twenty-nine days to either save Lightlark . . . or lose it forever.”
That night, Isla curled against Oro’s chest and traced him in the darkness. His cheeks. His lips. She touched him gently, just the slightest brush of her fingertips, and felt him shiver. “Oro,” she said. “Growing up, I didn’t experience seasons. It was always warm. But there were a few weeks in the middle of the year when everything felt the most alive. I called that summer, and I used to wish that it would last forever.” She frowned against the memory of her vision. “You and me . . . we built an endless summer. And I won’t let anyone destroy it.”
The next morning, he was gone when she woke up. The clock had started counting down, and chaos ensued. Word of Grim’s warning had spread, and people rushed the castle, frantic, looking for answers.
Every willing and able adult was expected to begin training.
It had been centuries since war. Many of the best fighters had died during the curses. Oro went off to Sun Isle, with Enya, to get their forces together. Azul assembled his flight force, a legion in the sky.
Isla felt uncertain about asking any of the Starlings to fight, given most were barely older than children. A few people on the Starling newland volunteered to fight, and the rest who could wield would make weapons and provide energy for a shield that could be used to protect parts of the island.
That night, before going to Oro’s room, she went to her own. She didn’t make it past the entryway before pausing.
There was a flicker of curling white fabric on her balcony.
Cleo.
The Moonling ruler stood there, hands gripping the ledge, facing the sea. Her white hair cut through the night in sharp strands. Her dress was a pale puddle across the stone floor.
Isla swallowed. She wondered if she should be afraid. She waited for the fear to come . . . but it didn’t.
A greater danger was coming. Grim was coming. Fears were relative, she realized. They could feel smaller when placed next to bigger ones.
She wasn’t afraid of Cleo. Not anymore.
The door creaked as it opened. From this angle, the full moon looked like a halo around Cleo’s head. It lit her white dress and skin—she was a candle without its wick. The Moonling didn’t even turn around as she said, “It was a night just like this.” Isla eyed the pool of water around Cleo’s dress. “The worst night of my life. It was a full moon . . . just like this one.”
Isla leaned against her door. “What do you want, Cleo?”
Cleo almost smiled. It was a sad expression. “Tonight? It might surprise you . . . but I want to help you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That does surprise me,” Isla said. Vines crawled up the cliff, until they reached her balcony. They didn’t stop until they wrapped around Isla’s arms and down her palms. “Considering you tried to kill me.”
Cleo looked from the vines dripping down her fingers to her face, and smirked. “Wildling,” she said. “If I had wanted to kill you, you would be dead.”
A massive wave crashed against the balcony, and Isla felt the force of it in her knees. Freezing water soaked her legs, and she tried her best not to shiver.
“I heard you were locked in a glass box of a room. Is that true?” Cleo asked. Where was she going with that? How did she even know that? Isla nodded warily and watched as Cleo turned back toward the moon. She stared at it as she said, “You are a young fool, but you remind me so much of him.” Isla could have imagined it, but Cleo’s voice cracked with emotion, splitting from its normal coolness. “My son.”
The sea that had made its way through the teeth of the balcony pillars froze over. It nearly reached Isla, though she didn’t move a muscle.
Son? Cleo had an heir . . . ? That couldn’t be right; heirs weren’t allowed at the Centennial—
“He died. The curse took him.” Cleo looked down at the sea, sloshing and churning, and Isla saw a hatred there. “I did everything I could to protect him. I locked him up just like you, and I failed.”
Isla would have thought it impossible to ever feel some sort of hurt for Cleo, though her eyes burned as she thought of her son, locked in his room, and the mother who just wanted to keep him safe. “That’s why you didn’t attend the fourth Centennial,” Isla said. “You had an heir.”
“Our curse was well managed by then. It was more important to secure my realm’s future. I had an heir, because, like you said, I do everything for the good of my realm.”
It wasn’t just Isla who thought that. She remembered Oro during the Centennial saying Cleo was the most dedicated ruler of all of them. Though she’d had relationships with both men and women before the curses, she hadn’t formerly been with anyone since becoming ruler. She put her realm’s safety above all else.
“Something unexpected happened, though,” Cleo said. “I . . . loved him. I had forgotten what that felt like . . . to love someone so much, it feels like drowning.” She turned to fully face Isla, and the ice around her turned liquid, before crackling once more. Cleo had always worn dresses with a high neckline, but tonight she wore something more casual. Because of that, Isla was able to see a necklace: a simple ribbon with a light-blue stone that glistened in the moonlight. “I attended the last Centennial for him, so no one else would be taken by the curses.” She looked Isla up and down, her expression still dripping in dismay. “And because of him, I’m helping you.”
Isla didn’t know why Cleo had told her all of this now, when she had been so defensive just days before.
Cleo wanted something from her. She just needed to figure out what it was.
“The oracle,” Cleo finally said. “She’s awake and has a message for you. You’ll want to visit her soon.”
The oracle was awake. They needed her now more than ever. Hope sprouted, but was tinged with suspicion.
The oracle was on Moon Isle. Cleo could keep Isla from accessing her if she wanted.
“Why . . . why are you telling me this?” Cleo said it was because of her son, but that didn’t make any sense. Her son was dead. “Are you agreeing to be loyal to Lightlark?” She needed confirmation before she could take anything the Moonling said seriously.
Cleo looked at her and frowned. “I’m loyal only to myself,” she said.
She did not look at Isla again before a wave rushed up and took her away.
This time, Isla told Oro about her conversation with Cleo. They were rushing down the castle steps the next morning, on their way to the oracle, avoiding the craterous fissures from the drek attack, when Azul crashed in front of them with the force of a lightning strike. He was crouched, a jewel-covered hand balanced in front of him.
Ciel and Avel came down a moment later, flanking Isla.
Azul straightened, and for the first time, she could see traces of his true age in the heaviness of his expression.
“What’s happened?” Oro asked, stepping forward. He reached almost absent-mindedly toward Isla, in a protective motion, and Isla watched Azul track it.
“See for yourself,” the Skyling said, his voice grave.
In an instant, Ciel and Avel lifted Isla up, and the five of them shot into the sky. Azul’s expression was serious, but he glanced down at her as he flew above, knowingly. Warily. Then, his gaze went back to the horizon.
Isla saw it before they landed, and her mouth went dry.
A fleet like dozens of swans, positioned in the shape of a diamond, cut through the ocean, riding against the current. These ships did not have or require sails. They made currents of their own. The sea parted from their path.
The ones who controlled the decks moved in unison, in practiced motions. They had been preparing for this. Training, just like her.
Cleo was on the front-most ship. Her white dress billowed, puffed up, the only thing resembling a sail on those vessels. She turned, staring right at them.
They were not the only ones watching. She heard the islanders on the beaches below and by the Broken Harbor witnessing history unfold. Moonling was leaving Lightlark.
“They’re fleeing,” Azul said, his voice still nearly unbelieving.
“No,” a voice said, and they all turned around to find Soren standing there, watching the Moonlings fade away. “They’re joining Nightshade.”
