Page 136 of Lightlark
He knelt beside her, and she wondered why until she screamed out, her pain rushing at her in full force. There was a long gash along her side where the girl had cut her.
Oro made a gentle, calming sound that seemed totally at odds with his hulking presence. He towered over her even on his knees.
She shivered on the cold stone floor, and he placed a hand against her bare stomach. At once, heat flooded her core, followed by a sting—he was healing her. Oro made the calming sound once more when she flinched, and Isla looked at him, really looked at him, grimacing as her skin knitted itself back together. He stared back.
Something about his proximity, maybe, or his hands on her—or the blood she had lost, more likely—made her feel a little dizzy.
Isla groaned again, the healing like electricity against her skin. He flinched as her hand came over his own, both pressed against her wound. It was hot as a coal beneath her fingers, and enormous, spanning almost fully across her stomach. Before long, it moved.
She watched his knuckles trail down her ribs, healing the very edges of the wound.
“Finished,” he said, just as Isla braced herself for another sting.
Isla blinked at him. She had been panting, the salt in her wound like flames against her skin. Now, her breathing settled.
Oro slowly removed his hands from her bare skin. As soon as he did, she shivered, the cold rushing back.
At that, he touched her again, this time against her knee.
She straightened, willing her strange thoughts away, remembering why they were in the wretched palace in the first place. “Did you find it?” she asked, eyes wide. Desperate.
Oro’s gaze darkened. “No,” he said. “It wasn’t there.”
She closed her eyes, disappointment hurting almost as much as her wound had. She was Celeste’s and her people’s only hope. She couldn’t fail, not again. When she opened them, she forced herself to look more confident than she felt. “It can only be in one place, then, right?”
“Yes. But that place is one I had hoped to avoid.”
“Why?”
“It’s right at the center of Vinderland territory,” he said.
Her face scrunched in confusion.
“The group that tried to kill you.”
Oh.
“Who were they?” she asked. She hadn’t seen them, but their voices ... what they had wanted to do to her ...
Oro blinked. “I thought you knew.”
Knew what?
“They were Wildlings.”
What?Her face twisted. “There aren’t any left on the island, and they weremen—”
“There aren’t any left. TheywereWildlings. Their group left your realm long before even the curses. They had already renounced their power, so their kind wasn’t affected.”
So, they ate hearts and flesh out of desire ... not because of a curse. She shuddered. There was so much about the Wildlings she didn’t know.
Why had the group left their realm in the first place?
“I can go alone,” Oro said. Unlike every time he had said similar words before, there was no mean edge to his voice. “If you would prefer not to take the risk.”
But she had made it this far. If she was going to win, if she was going to save the people she loved most, she needed to be there when they found the heart. “I’m coming,” she said.
That same night, Oro took her to a place she never would have expected to be invited to—the castle’s ancient store of weaponry. She grabbed too many things—arrows, bows, knives, throwing stars, swords. Celeste and Terra were on her mind—the strongest people she knew.
