Page 33 of Skyshade
It was time for her to see it for herself.
Lynx snarled as Wraith landed behind them, so closely, she was nearly knocked off his back. Grim had insisted on accompanying her here, though he didn’t know about the traitor. When it came to anyone harming her, he seemed to operate by a kill first, ask questions later philosophy. No, she would find the Wildling traitor herself. She ran her hand down Lynx’s neck as she dismounted, and he took off, immediately followed by an eager Wraith, as if they were in some sort of race.
A castle sat on the edge of a cove, surrounded by farmland. Its bricks were shining black, almost silver, and its towers were spiked, as if covered in crowns. A ring of water around it glimmered beneath the sun. Its door was a bridge, laying across the moat, perfectly aligned with a pathway of cobblestone and patches of grass. A small village sat nearby, abandoned for decades.
That was where Grim had taken the Wildlings. “They chose this place,” he said, from just behind her.
A castle with a town next to it. Something about it tugged at her bones.
“It was your father’s. It’s yours.”
Her father.
He had been Grim’s general, a powerful Nightshade, from a prominent family. That was all she really knew about him, besides his flair.
A question snagged in her mind. She couldn’t believe she had never asked it before. Perhaps she had been too afraid of knowing the answer. “Do I—do I have any surviving family?” The castle had been abandoned, but it was possible they lived somewhere else.
Grim nodded, and she nearly drowned in hope.
Her eyes burned. “I do?”
Her entire life, she had been taught her family was dead. The idea of that not being true, of her having someone out there...
He could sense her excitement, she knew that, but still, he had a strange expression on his face. A tentative one. “A cousin.”
A cousin.
Family.
She wanted to meet them. How could Grim have hidden them from her? She scoured her memories but came up short. She had never met a relative, not even in the past.
“Who is it?” she demanded.
He looked suddenly nervous. “Roles in my court go blood deep. Certain lines have served the same positions for centuries. Millenia, even.”
Isla’s smile dropped. She knew what he was saying. Who her mysterious cousin was.
Grim’s current general, Astria. The woman that looked at her as if she was a snake curled around Grim’s neck, slowly tightening.
Astria must have known they were related. She must have known and still didn’t trust her at all.
“Oh,” Isla said.
Grim portaled her to the castle’s entrance and was gone.
The inside of the palace was surprisingly welcoming, coated in a layer of black marble. Her people looked happy to see her. She mighthave suggested they convene all together, but no. If she was going to find the Wildling traitor working against her, she was going to have to speak to each one of them separately.
One woman approached her immediately. Her name was Calla. She had short hair and freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were wide as she told Isla about what had happened a few days prior, during the storm.
“I was out in the field, when the ground began to shift. I could feel it...pulsing, almost. Then snakes crawled from the dirt. Dozens of them. As if called by the winds. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Follow the snakes. That was what Eta had said.
Perhaps it had been Calla. Maybe she was trying to blame the storm for the nightbane loss. How else would she know about the serpents?
Isla’s suspicions withered after a few hours, when she spoke to the rest of the Wildlings. A few had been with Calla the entire time. Several had seen the snakes. They were described as being half green, half black.
According to them, all Wildlings had been around the keep during the storm. The nightbane fields were across Nightshade. Without portaling, getting there would take several hours.
