Page 126 of Skyshade
“Did you think I wouldn’t find you?” His face was just inches from hers, close enough to see the specks of gold in his amber eyes, simmering with fury. “Did you think I wouldn’t catch you?” He leaned closer. “You can’t hide from me,” he growled. “Even if I can’t see you, I can feel you. You are relentless. You are a gravity I’ve tried to escape, but I can’t. I can’t , Isla.” His voice shook. He was one of the most powerful rulers in history, but his arm shook with restraint as he brushed his thumb against the wrists he had pinned above her head.
He looked like he hated himself, truly hated himself for his words. He looked like he hated that she shivered beneath his touch. He shook his head. “You chose someone else, you left, and still, I wait here like a fool for the day you might return.”
He pointed just beyond the gates, close to the forest where he had found her.
“I go to that cliff, that beach, every single morning because the sea is the green of your eyes, and it’s the closest I get to waking up next to you.”
She shook her head. “Forget me,” she begged. “I’m not good for you, Oro.”
“You don’t think I’ve tried?” He said, eyes blazing. “My love for you is like that forever flame, Isla. Relentless. Stubborn. Endless. Burning brightly, even if you’re not around to see it.”
A tear slipped down her cheek.
His anger abated. It was replaced by pain. “Come back,” he said, his voice breaking, and she closed her eyes tightly. “Stay.”
“Oro, I can’t.” He didn’t understand. He didn’t get it.
“You can,” he said, and she opened her eyes to find his widened, desperate. “I’ve driven myself mad thinking about it. I understand why you left. You wanted to stop the battle. You wanted to stop the death. But I can’t understand why you stayed. I kept...I kept waiting for you to come back. So I came to you, thinking there must be something wrong, that he was somehow keeping you there, but then,” his voice broke as he cut off. He closed his eyes and took a breath, as if gathering strength. “Then you gave me this.” He pulled the golden rose necklace from his pocket.
He carried it with him. He hadn’t melted it down or thrown it into the sea, as she had imagined.
Oro must have sensed her surprise, because he said, “I wanted to destroy it. I wanted to burn it. But I couldn’t.” He shook his head. “Why, Isla? I would have thought the words you told me, the time we shared, had been a lie—but I could feel their truth. So why?”
He leaned closer, and she leaned away, her wrists still pinned above her. They were made of stone. She had energy left. She could remove them, but she didn’t. She didn’t, even as his lips lowered toward hers, as he said, just inches away from her skin, “Tell me you don’t miss me. Tell me you don’t think about me. Tell me you don’t go back in time and change your mind.” His lips grazed her cheek as he said, “Tell me that, and mean it, and I will leave you alone forever. I swear it.”
She lifted her chin high and forced herself to meet his gaze. “I don’t miss you,” she said steadily. “I never think of you. I don’t go back in time and change my mind.”
His lips were just over hers. She felt his breath against her mouth. He leaned closer, like he might kiss her, like she might let him, and said, “Liar.”
Then, he walked away, leaving her pinned against the stone.
He made it a few paces before he cursed. Isla wrenched herself from the wall and turned the corner.
The gates stood there, in view.
And an army stood beyond them.
Isla recognized the stillness of Lark’s bloodless soldiers.
They were blocking their path, making exiting impossible, unless they wanted to risk getting cut down by dozens of blades.
Worse—they weren’t just Nightshade. They were Skyling. Starling. Sunling. Some faces, Isla recognized from the battle, fighting on her side.
Now they stared blankly.
Oro’s eyes were pure fire and fury, understanding coming over him. “I’m going to kill her,” he said, his voice a dark promise.
Her words were barely a whisper. “She can’t be killed.”
He turned to her. “Then I will throw her into the forever flame and watch her burn until the end of time.”
The bloodless soldiers watched them, waiting. Isla suspected what would happen, but she sent a spiral of flames through the gaps in the gates anyway.
They dissolved the moment they hit the gold. It was impenetrable, on both sides.
They were trapped. Only death awaited on the other side. The army could stand there forever if needed; they were already dead.
Without water, in this heat...Isla and Oro would soon join them.
