Page 152 of Skyshade
The snow turned to water that broke through every pane of glass. The wave sent her across the floor, as she fought for purchase. She clung to the dining table, to chairs, to the window, but it was persistent.
It was no use fighting as it pulled her under.
She gasped as she crashed through the surface, desperate for air. She swallowed it in large gulps, her eyes blinking wildly, her body numb beneath her. When her vision cleared, she saw she was in the center of the long fountain behind the palace, in the middle of the garden.
Cleo and Lark stood before her.
The Wildling was supposed to be in pieces. She was supposed to be frozen solid.
Cleo. Isla bared her teeth at the Moonling. She hoped Calder hadn’t been hurt.
Cleo responded by pulling Isla under again, and she thrashed against the water, fighting to summon some power—but she had been submerged for too long. Her body might as well have been ice. Her abilities had sunk to a place deep behind her ribs.
She broke the surface again, shaking wildly from the cold, coughing. Lynx roared from across the gardens. She heard him thrash, as if fighting against restraints, and her blood heated. Grim had left him here, tied, for her. He and Oro were waiting in the blacksmith’s forge. They would be wondering what was taking her so long.
“You were right,” Lark said. “She is a slippery one. In fact,” she said, eyes flashing with anger, “I thought you were still in the center of the ground, waiting for me...imagine my surprise when I saw you in the storm, on the back of a dragon.” Lark looked at her curiously. “How did you manage to get out of the bracelets, little Wildling?”
Isla spit in her direction and was dragged beneath the water again. She tried to fight against the liquid, to control it by using Oro’s power, but it slipped between her fingers, as if Cleo had full control over all of it. She was a stronger Moonling. All water and ice and snow encasing the Algid was loyal to her.
“Not yet,” she heard Lark say, and then she was gasping for air again. “I need her alive...for now.” She grinned at Isla. Her eyes trailed to her heart and the scar on it that was just nearly visible in her now-sheer, long-sleeved shirt. It was faintly glowing. “Did you think your life was safe, because you hold a shred of the heart of Lightlark?” Her smile grew. “I don’t need it. I just need you. I will drown you in my soil, and then you and your power will belong to me. I will raise you up just like the rest, and you will destroy this world, with all that great ability you hold. And then, with your bones, I will start anew. The world will be built off you, Isla,” she said. “Find peace in knowing your death will have meant something.”
The ground beneath the fountain began trembling. The stone around it fragmented, cracking along its veins. Isla lurched to the side, trying to avoid it.
Lark never took her eyes off her, a smile on her lips, her hand in front of her. Roots broke through the bottom, curling around Isla, pulling her, suffocating her. Dragging her down toward the water.
She would drown, then she would be buried below. She would rise. Lark would use her for her destruction.
She would become a weapon. She would either save the world...or end it.
Lark’s eyes flashed with satisfaction as she watched Isla struggle against the vines. As she watched her try to summon her Wildling ability only to be overpowered. She smiled wider, baring her teeth.
She didn’t even see the blade of ice until it was through her throat. Then it sliced through her chest, and legs, and arms. The ice kept shifting from liquid to solid, over and over, resisting Lark’s healing.
“Thank you,” Isla said to Cleo, and she broke free from the roots that had restrained her. Still on her knees, she thrust her arm into the water, until her fingers curled around the sword that she had thrown inside just minutes before. “Also—you almost killed me.”
Cleo just shrugged a shoulder.
Lark watched, dying and healing, again and again, as Isla slowly rose from the water. She took a step, and metal flew through the garden, into the fountain, curling around her ankle. Then around her leg. The other. She outstretched her arm, and the pieces came together like puzzles, the armor Ferrar had made her from her father’s own locking into place over every inch of skin, until she was luminous and warm. She had hidden it all. Everything had been planned.
She pulled Cronan’s sword completely out of the water.
“I can’t hold her for long,” Cleo said. “Go. And don’t forget your promise.”
“I won’t.”
The night before, she had visited Cleo and made her a promise. The Moonling had freed Lark from the ice. She had brought her there.
Now was Isla’s turn to follow through with her part of the plan.
She took off through the gardens, listening to Lark’s gargled screams. The roots beneath her feet began to shift, and she knew she didn’t have long as she tore down the path toward the maze.
A shot of blue sailed through the air, Cleo propelling herself toward the ocean in an arc of ice and water.
Her time was up.
She kept running, until she was at the maze’s mouth.
And Lark was behind her. She was panting, healing, ice falling from her body and crashing against the frozen grass. She stepped into the labyrinth.
