Page 4 of Nightbane
They had barely talked about the connection between them, the undeniable thread. He had let her have her space. She had wanted to take things slow. Not rush in, the way she had with Grim.
But at that moment, she didn’t want any space between them.
She stood on her toes, wanting to bridge the gap between her lips and his,finally, but no matter how long she stretched her neck, she couldn’t reach him.
Oro stared down at her and frowned. “Is this your attempt to distract me?”
Absolutely.She didn’t want to master her powers. She didn’t want to think about any of her newfound abilities. Once she started, she would have to think about things—andpeople—that had scarred her, perhaps beyond repair. “Yes. Let me?”
He lowered his head. His golden crown winked in the light.
Then his hands were on her waist. His fingers were long across her back; she arched into his touch. He grabbed her, so tightly she gasped—
But before she could wrap her legs around his waist, he carried her to the bed ...
... and dropped her back onto the sheets.
By the time she made a sound of protest, he was at the door. “Rest, Isla,” he said. “The dinner is in a few hours.” She groaned. It was the first time representatives were all meeting, to discuss the aftermath of the curses. “Then, we’ll begin our training.”
FLOATING FEAST
“Make me look like a sword,” Isla had told the Starling tailor Leto. “One that’s more blood than blade.” A mixture of Wildling and Starling. That was what she wore as she swept into the dining room.
The Sunling nobles had arrived early with their ruler. They were already seated when Isla walked through the doors, and when their eyes went straight to her—sharp and hungry—she had the unnerving feeling of being the very thing they had come to pick at and consume.
Before, she might have cowered under their scrutiny, but now she strode to the table like she didn’t notice. What could anyone on this island do or say to her that they hadn’t already done? Moonling nobles had tried to assassinate her. The others had already judged her down to the bone. In the marketplace, most people avoided her, still hating Wildlings because of their bloodthirsty curse, even after it had been broken. Her new red, metal-woven dress whispered against the smooth floor, feeling almost like chain mail, fighting against the silence shrinking the room.
She quickly marked the Sunling nobles as she passed them by. A man with long golden hair tied into a braid and dark skin, wearing a solemn expression. A tall woman, made up of about a thousand freckles, her hair the color of rust. A man who looked old—remarkable, given that even Oro looked young, and he had been alive for more than five centuries—his spine curved toward the table as if emulating the top of a question mark. He smiled at her, light skin crinkling, but it tipped more toward amused than friendly.
Oro sat at the head of the table, and he was also watching. The king would have looked exactly like he did at the beginning of the Centennial, at that first dinner, if not for his eyes. Back then, his eyes had been hollow as honeycomb.
Now, they burned right through her with an intensity that made any previous thoughts unspool around her. He almost imperceptibly traced her with his gaze. Her bare, tan shoulders. The silk-and-steel corset. The slit in her dress revealing knee-high boots she’d had made, because they were more practical than her heels or slippers. Her long brown hair, with tiny red flowers woven through the ends. She watched him back, for just a second. His broad shoulders. Golden hair. The sharp panes of his smooth face. He had been paler before, after so many years without sunlight, but now he was glowing, radiant. He was so beautiful, it almost hurt looking at him.
She didn’t remember noticing how attractive he was at that first dinner.
Wasthatlove?
Oro looked away quickly.
As she took her place next to him, the doors opened, and a breeze blew her hair back, bringing with it the comforting scent of pine and the prickling chill of mountain air. Azul swept in with the current, feet never touching the floor. He was joined by two others, not nobles but elected officials. Skylings ran their realm as close to a democracy as was possible in a system where rulers were born with the bulk of the power, power their people’s lives hinged on.
While Azul’s hair was as dark as his skin, the woman behind him had hair the color of the sky itself, complete with a bit of white mixed in—a sign she was ancient, just like the curved-over Sunling. Unlike the old man’s, though, her posture was perfect. Her skin was deep brown, and she was small in stature.
The Skyling next to her was built like a tombstone, as solid as if he were carved straight from the Singing Mountains. He was white as the cliffs of Lightlark, and so tall Isla couldn’t see the color of his hair from the way his face was angled as he stared straight ahead. He was large enough to carry three swords on his belt comfortably, and he dwarfed all of them. Isla had the unpleasant thought that her own sword would look something like a quill in the giant’s grip.
Azul came around the table to greet Isla, though his seat was on the other side of Oro. “Your style has changed,” he mused.
His, happily, had not. The ruler of Skyling was wearing a tunic with shards cut out of its sides and bulbous sapphires in place of buttons. He wore a ring on every finger.
It was her first time seeing him since the Centennial had ended.You should have sought him out,her mind whispered. Another failing.
She wanted to ask how he was doing after watching the specter of his long-lost husband disappear once the storm cleared. She wanted to apologize for believing even for a moment that he was her enemy. She wanted to ask him how the Skylings were faring in the aftermath.
Before she could get a word out, Azul said, “We could make time to meet, if you would like.”
“I would like that very much,” she said.
“Good.” He dipped his chin and whispered, “Beware. Someone is always watching.”
