Page 151 of Nightbane
“What choice?” she practically screamed.
“Oro and Grim.”
Isla froze at their mention.
“You will kill one of them. That much is certain. Which one lives, and which one dies ... that has not yet been decided.”
She planned to kill Grim that very day ... but the oracle said it was just as likely she would end up killing Oro.
It couldn’t be true.
Now that she had most of her memories back ... she didn’t want to kill either of them.
“Nothingis decided,” the oracle repeated. “Both possibilities are just as likely. Youwillkill one of them, with your own hand.”
This couldn’t be her fate. She couldn’t be the one to decide the future of the world. Why her?
“You, whose heart has been split in two in more ways than one, are capable of both life and death. You are both curse and cure.”
Grim had said those same words to her—
Isla sobbed into her hands. Her mind was at war. The more she remembered—
“They’re almost here,” the oracle said. “Go, now. Make your choice.”
The oracle smiled, one last time, before the wall of ice cracked and fell, water forming a wave that Isla only missed by rising above, using her Wildling abilities.
When the water cleared, the oracle was gone.
Isla raced across the Mainland on Lynx’s back. He was wearing his full armor, scuffed with marks from previous battles with her mother. Lynx hadn’t needed much time to get used to the island. She held tightly as he expertly avoided the brambles she herself had set up, to block the Nightshades. Wind whipped her face. Tears were briny on her cheeks.
You will kill one of them.
No. Days before, she had declared she would help kill Grim. She would put a hold on his powers. But now ... she remembered so much more.
He was her enemy. He was coming to destroy the island. He was going to kill innocents, killher, if she didn’t stop him. So why did the idea of hurting him hurt so much? Why did it feel like she was being torn in two?
Their army was lined up and ready, spread across the only clearing left on the Mainland. Skyling warriors glimmered like ornaments, armor shining as they waited above. Ciel and Avel were among them. Each were supplied with dozens of metal-tipped arrows. Zed and Calder had worked hard to make sure of it.
Before Azul had left, hours before, he had given them a gift. A violent storm raged high above the island, contained between rows of clouds, as a fence to keep the dreks from being able to escape once the Skylings began using their special weapons.
Azul had looked devastated to leave. He had clutched her hands in goodbye and she had slipped one of her rings onto his finger, the same way she had the first time they ever saw each other. “Keep it safe for me,” she said. “Until we see each other next.”
Lynx came to a sudden halt in front of Oro. The traitorous creature greeted him with about ten times more fondness than he had greeted her.
Enya stood next to Oro in rose-gold armor, looking determined. She nodded at Isla, then at Lynx, who tipped his head in greeting.
A Sunling called to her, and she excused herself. Isla watched her go and—
“Be—be careful,” Isla said, surprising herself. She didn’t realize how much she had come to care about the Sunling, even after what she had told her.
Enya grinned over her shoulder. “Don’t worry about me, Wildling,” she said, winking. “I do not die today.”
Isla wondered if she could say the same.
She slipped off Lynx’s back and landed in front of Oro. She couldn’t meet his eyes, after what she had just learned. “They’ll be here soon,” she said. She wouldn’t tell him how she had visited the oracle. How could she explain that the woman had predicted she had just as much chance of killing Oro as Grim?
No. Impossible. She would kill Grim today and end the prophecy. There would be no chance that it could ever be Oro.
