Page 5 of Lightlark
The game had officially started.
“I hope so.”
Crowds awaited them at the castle doors. Starlings. Moonlings. Skylings.
On the night of the curses, five hundred years before, all six rulers perished. Their power and responsibility were transferred to their heirs, and all of them except for the new king fled the island’s instability to create the newlands, hundreds of miles from the island and each other.
Some subjects had remained on Lightlark.
Once, Isla had asked the Wildling Eldress why anyone would stay in the near constant cursed tempest that had overtaken it.
Power is in the island’s blood and bones,she had said.Lightlark lengthens our lives, gives us access to a power much greater than our own. And more than that, to many ... Lightlark is home.
No Wildlings remained. She would get no aid from her people.
She was alone.
“Don’t worry,” a deep voice said mockingly at her side. “I don’t have any adoring fans either.”
The crowd watched Grim with a healthy mix of fear and disdain—Isla studied their reactions carefully. He looked like night come to life, his clothing shadow spun into silk. If Wildlings were looked down upon on Lightlark, Nightshades seemed to be outright hated. And, according to Terra and Poppy’s lessons, never fully accepted on the island. They had their own land, a stronghold they had maintained for thousands of years.
The war between Nightshade and Lightlark hadn’t helped either.
Isla didn’t meet his gaze, though she felt his eyes all over her. It was unnerving. Her skin felt inexplicably electric. “I’m sure you get morethan enough attention back home.” She smiled politely at the crowd, testing their own reaction to her. Some of them returned the gesture warily. Others visibly recoiled from the sight of her, the heart-devouring temptress. She wasn’t surprised. Everything she represented was forbidden. A Moonling woman covered her child’s eyes and made a figure in the air, as if warding off a demon.
“I do,” he admitted. “Yet, I’m left ... unsatisfied.”
Isla ignored him. She wasn’t going to play this game with him, whatever it was. She had her own game to play.
The interior of the castle looked like a sun had burst inside and bathed the walls in its glow—an ode to the Sunlings who had built it. Everything was gold. Buttery sunlight spilled from long windows, coating the foyer in glittering light that reflected off the smooth, shining floor. Isla squinted as if she was still outside. A raging fire burned in a ring high above them on a chandelier, flames peaking in place of crystals.
The Sunling ruler was not there to greet them. He couldn’t be, even if he wanted to, which Isla truly doubted. Sunlings had been cursed never to feel the warmth of sunlight or see the brightness of day—forced to shun that which gave them power. The king of Lightlark was trapped in the darkness of his chambers, only able to surface at night. In that, Isla supposed they were similar. She had spent a lot of time trapped inside too.
A woman in Starling silver bowed before them. Behind her, a small group of staff echoed her movement. Each ruler received an attendant for the entirety of the Centennial. “It would be our pleasure to escort you to your chambers.”
Each ruler was led away to completely different parts of the castle. Far from each other. Isla didn’t know what to think about that. Intentional—every detail at the Centennial was intentional, that was what Terra had taught her.
A young Starling girl walked toward her slowly, slightly sideways, the way a child might approach a coiled snake. “My lady,” she said,voice so soft Isla had to lean in to hear her, which only made the girl flinch. Isla resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Did the girl actually think she would feast on her heart in the middle of the foyer? Her kind was wild, but they weren’tanimals.“Follow me.”
“Isla,” she said at the girl’s stiff back as she raced away with a noticeable amount of trouble. Isla would likely need the girl’s help during some point—which meant she would need to earn her loyalty somehow. “You can call me Isla.”
“As you wish,” the girl murmured.
She led Isla up a sweeping set of stairs that ran through the center of the castle and down an impossible tangle of hallways that jutted over and across each other like bridges. But, unlike her palace in the Wildling realm, this one became more and more enclosed the deeper she went. It reminded her of a maze in a cave. Or a prison. She suddenly imagined the king as an ancient beast, trapped in the dark. Lost in the labyrinth that was his castle. They reached a stretch without a single window. The halls grew colder, the walls thicker.
The girl stopped in front of an ancient stone door. With about all the strength it seemed she could muster, she pushed it open.
Someone had managed to plant a tree right in the middle of the room, an oak with blush-colored blossoms and blooming fruit Isla didn’t recognize, its roots dug right into the stone floor. Ivy crept across the ceiling in a pretty design, leading to the wall her bed rested against, which was covered in leaves down to the floor.
There was more. Isla walked across the room and onto a wide, curling balcony that jutted right over the sea. Dangerously so. Waves churned below. The castle was a curious child perched at the top of the mountain, leaning way too far over the edge.
Isla frowned. “How sturdy is this?” It seemed like the balcony could break off at any moment, or that the castle itself could simply slide off the cliff during a storm.
“As sturdy as the king himself, I suppose.”
Right. Isla knew that from her lessons. The king of Lightlark didn’t just control its power—hewasits power. If something happened to him, the entire land would crumble away, and every Lightlark realm would fall. That was why he trod so carefully. Not in fear of being killed, but in fear of someone stealing that terrible power right from under him.
Another similarity. Isla couldn’t fall in love either.
