Page 111 of Lightlark
The second she was away from him, frost filled her chest. Moon Isle had gotten significantly colder since the last time she was here. Her eyes darted to Oro.Hewas the reason. Since Lightlark and his control of it was weakening, he could no longer keep it warm. Or bright. The days were dimmer. The sun set sooner. All parts of the island were noticeably cooler. Dozens more hearths and torches had been added across the Mainland and inside the castle. But they were only a temporary solution.
They had landed on the edge of a forest of trees that looked more like knotted, twisted roots, delicately braided at the top. Streams navigated between them, transporting water lilies and fat white flowers as big as her palms. It was so silent, she could hear the snow falling. She shivered, cold air puffing from her lips. Her fingers already felt frozen; her toes were tiny blocks in her boots. Wind bit against her cheeks and nose, and her eyes watered and stung.
Suddenly, Isla screamed.
In the middle of the silence, a dark-blue bird like ocean made into wings landed on her shoulder and screeched right into her ear.
Oro turned and struck immediately, without waiting to see what the threat was. His fire curled through the night, right to where the bird had been—but it was too fast and went flying away, back through the woods.
His arm dropped as he watched it. When he turned to Isla, his eyebrows were slightly raised. “Aren’t you supposed to be good with animals?”
“Not when they blow out my hearing,” she said, gingerly cupping her ear. “Aren’tyousupposed to have more care with your fire?”
Oro’s jaw tensed—she had struck a chord, it seemed. “Yes,” he said tersely.
They walked in silence until the ground turned to ice. She could see the roots of the trees below the crystal-like veins, dark as night. They reached a cliff where snow began to cake the ground like frosting. Her boots quickly got stuck in it, so she trailed behind Oro, whose steps melted a path. Snowflakes got lost in her hair and piled on her nose, and she felt as cold as one of the ice statues that sat in front of the Moon Isle palace.
After an hour, her breathing became panting, and she must have slowed, because Oro finally turned. One look at her, and he offered his hand. “I can warm you.”
She wanted to say no. But she was done being proud. She gripped his hand with her own, and he frowned.
“You’re freezing.” He said it like an accusation.
Isla wanted to glare at him, but her eyes stung too much to make the movement.
In a quick sweep, he removed his golden cape and draped it around her. It was so large, it wrapped Isla like a blanket. She wanted to reject it, but the moment it touched her skin, her body was flooded with heat that seemed to melt through her bones. Her face buried in the fabric,shoulders shivering as she tied it closer around herself. It smelled like honey and mint leaves, deliciously soft against her skin.
When she finally peeked her head out of the cape and buttoned it around her neck, Oro was watching her warily. “Are you ... all right?” he asked, as if the idea of hypothermia and dying of cold had never once crossed his mind.
“I’m fine,” she said quickly, raising her chin as if doing so did anything to make her look less ridiculous. She walked past him, into snow that drenched her ankles in cold. “Thank you.”
Oro followed behind, and she must have been walking in the right direction, because he didn’t say a word. She did not stop until she reached a slab of ice so large, it was like a glacier that had gotten trapped on land.
Isla squinted at it. There was something inside. She inched closer and wiped at it with Oro’s cape. Some of the frost cleared, and she startled, tripping backward, right into Oro, who steadied her before she could fall into the snow.
Three women were trapped within the ice.
“The oracles,” he said, hands falling from her shoulders.
She blinked too many times. “I thought there wasone.”
“Only one has thawed in the last thousand years.”
“Why are they here?”
Oro stepped to her side. “A king far before me trapped them in ice, so they would never leave, or die. Three women born with the gift of prophecy. Enraged at being imprisoned, two of them joined forces with Nightshade, calling to the dark part of the island. When Night Isle was destroyed, they froze forever.”
“So, this is a place where darkness meets light.”
Oro nodded as he placed a hand against the ice. It immediately began to thaw.
The middle woman’s eyes flew open. She floated in the water, her white hair a halo around her head. Her gaze went to Isla, then Oro, then back again.
Her voice echoed, sounding like a million voices trapped in one throat.
“It’s been a long time since I saw a Sunling and a Wildling side by side.” She angled her body toward them, her face just inches from their own. “I’ve been warned not to help you ... but this is just too curious ...”
Thiswas the woman who had spoken the prophecy of the curses. The key to breaking them. Her words were the ones they followed like law. The ones she had learned from the time she could talk.
