Page 109 of Lightlark
“Is that what you were searching for?” he asked. He knew she had been looking for something in the Sun Isle library. And that she hadn’t found it.
No use in hiding it now. She nodded.
It was her turn again. “How long have you been able to gild?”
Oro looked surprised by the question. He blinked. Isla wondered if this was the one he would refuse to answer. A few moments passedin silence before he said, “Since I was a child.” His eyes were trained on the ground. Deep in thought. “I was told to hide it,” he said, frowning, as if he hadn’t expected to be telling her this. “Egan was the eldest. The heir. He was supposed to be the strongest.”
“But he couldn’t gild,” Isla guessed.
He met her eyes. Nodded.
“So why now? Why show everyone?”
Oro sighed. Shrugged a shoulder. “I figure I’m dying. Might as well share all my secrets.” He said it casually, but his eyes were hard. Serious. She thought of the bluish gray she had seen hours before. How much it had spread since he had first shown it to them in the throne room. Moments mounted, and silence stretched between them. She wondered if he wouldn’t take his chance to ask a question, right up until he finally met her gaze and said, “What was your secret, Isla?”
Isla.He so rarely called her by her name, instead referring to her asWildlingmost of the time, as if to remind both of them of what she was. Or, she supposed, what she was supposed to be.
She felt her throat get tight. “What?”
His stare was unrelenting. “Your secret from my demonstration. What was it?”
She swallowed. Shook her head no.
The king laughed without humor. “I didn’t think so.” He scratched the side of his neck. “How about this—why did you let me win our duel?”
So, hehadknown. The duel seemed so far away. So much had changed. “I didn’t want to make myself a target.”
“Ah.”
Her turn to be bold. To prove that, even though he had proclaimed that he wanted to share all his secrets, there were still some he wasn’t willing to divulge.
“What is your flair?” she asked. She had wondered for a while if the king had one of the rare powers that didn’t relate to their realms, the ones rulers so often possessed.
The way Oro paused made her positive he did. The Sunling inclined his head at her. Considering. “Share your secret, and I’ll tell you.”
Wretch.She said nothing.
And the king smiled. It unnerved her. She had never seen him smile, not really. Not genuinely. “How about this?” He sat up straighter. His eyes were not hollow at all—they were full of something she couldn’t read. “Tell me your secret, andyoucan be the one who wins.”
Silence. Her heart was beating so loudly, it was a wonder it wasn’t echoing through the cave. “What?”
Oro did not so much as blink. “When we find the heart, you can brandish it, fulfilling the prophecy.Youcan win the great power promised.” He shrugged. “But only if you tell me your secret.”
Win?
Isla had never even thought of winning. She had been too focused on surviving. On breaking her and Celeste’s curses. Lately, on finally getting her Wildling abilities.
He couldn’t be serious.
“Why would you do that?” she demanded. “Don’t you want the power for yourself?”
Oro shook his head. “I do not wish to become a god,” he said. “Too much power is dangerous. I have never wanted to win. I simply want to save Lightlark.”
Isla scoffed. “You would give it tome?”
“Who else? Do you suppose Cleo should have it?” Isla bared her teeth, and Oro looked ready to grin at her reaction. “Precisely.”
“How about Azul?”
