Page 39 of Skyshade
She glanced at the pool of blood. Shuddered. “What are the other methods?”
He pointed toward the markings on his head and neck. “Skyres. The ancient markings.” She hadn’t ever heard of skyres, though she had seen something like the augur’s markings once before on someone. But that person was dead.
“Teach me.”
He shook his head. “I cannot. I do not know myself. The prophet made these skyres, you see...he did so in secret. He never allowed anyone to witness the art.”
She studied them carefully. They looked complicated.
The augur sighed. “Find the portal, Isla Stormheart. It has power. Take it. Use it to live. Its fate is tied to yours. Find the portal...find your fate.”
“Do you know where it is?” She didn’t want to wait for another storm to find it.
He shook his marking-covered head. “No. The prophet knew its location. He wrote it in pages bound by his blood...but they’ve been lost.” She remembered the torn-out parchment from the book. “Centuries before the curses, a follower of the prophet’s word stole them and set off toward Lightlark.”
Lightlark? The mention of the island made her pause with both curiosity and longing. It was an effort to shift back to the reason she was here.
“Do you know how to close the portal when I find it?”
He shook his head again. “Only the pages know.” That wasn’t useful, if they were as good as lost.
She needed to wait for the next storm, trap it in the ring, and follow it to the portal. If the augur was to be believed, its power could give her life, time. She would take it, then find a way to close it.
The augur licked his thin lips with relish. His tongue dragged along his pointed teeth. “Such blood...Use it wisely, Isla Cursecure. Your parents gave you such gifts.” Her parents. He eyed her bracelets. “Such blood...such blood, wasted.”
“How can I make sure it isn’t wasted?” she asked. Her life...she wanted it to be worth something. She wanted to have done more good than bad.
“Use it.” The augur smiled. His sharpened teeth glimmered in the limited light. “Learn the truth of who you are...and your path will become clear.”
He motioned toward the wall. There, carved into the rock, she saw a drawing. It was a woman with snakes wrapped around and around her arms, her neck, her chest. She looked—
She looked like her.
“What is that?” Isla breathed, reaching out to trace the lines in the stone that looked ancient. Weathered.
“The future,” he said, reverently.
“Is it—is it supposed to be me?” The woman looked fearsome. Wicked.
The augur looked at her curiously, crimson eyes swirling. “Do you want it to be?”
She backed out of the cave, throat tightening.
“Not to worry. You will be back, Isla Heartblade,” he said, his voice echoing through the cave as she tore out of it. “It has been written.”
SNAKE
She and all of Nightshade wouldn’t survive the storm season, unless she could find the portal. Unless she could extend her life long enough to change her fate.
Part of her felt rage. Her life had barely been her own. Since she was a child, she had trained for the Centennial. Then, she found herself the ruler of two realms. Now, she was practically a walking corpse, her life tied to another, on borrowed time.
Freedom was what she had craved since she was a little girl, but fate was the ultimate restraint. It was the glass in her room, caging her; it was the bracelets, keeping the worst of her at bay.
The stormfinch sat watching her from inside its cage. She watched it back, willing it to sing. Willing a storm to break, so she could find the portal. Its beak remained closed.
It always stood in the same place. No matter how many days she left the door open, the bird never tried to fly out.
“You’re smarter than I am,” she said. For years, all she had wanted was to leave her room in the Wildling realm. She dreamed of adventure, of freedom.
