Page 67 of Skyshade
“What did the guard tell you?” she asked.
At that, his gaze returned to normal. He set her down. “He told me that.”
She turned, and any heat she had felt before withered away. They were at the burial site they had visited just weeks before.
And the graves had been destroyed. Dirt was everywhere. Ash had been scattered.
Anger flashed in Grim’s eyes. It was enormously disrespectful to the dead. She knew that, but it wasn’t what made dread sink through her chest.
This wasn’t a simple job. Hundreds of graves had been desecrated. It had been done quickly, for guards typically monitored these sites. It was only empty because of their wedding.
There was something else. A single serpent, waiting in the center of one of the dug-up mounds. It rattled its tail, then sank back into the dirt. Follow the snakes.
This was the work of a Wildling.
She reached behind her, down the back of her wedding dress. Her starstick was warm in her palm.
“Where are you going?” Grim asked.
She didn’t answer. She left her husband on the cliff. In her dress, the bottom now muddied, she swept into her family’s stronghold.
Isla found them in the dining room of the castle. Poppy was sniffling, eyes red and bloodshot like she had been crying. Terra sat next to her, eating dinner in silence.
Poppy jumped up when she saw her. “Litt—Isla,” she said. “You came to see us.” She saw the expression on her face and frowned.
Isla couldn’t find it in her heart to feel badly. No, not when she felt such anger. Such conviction. Her smile was pure hostility as she walked toward them. She hardly recognized her own voice as she said, “Everyone was at my wedding...everyone except the two of you.”
Terra looked up at her, bored. “We’re aware. Poppy’s been crying about it for hours.”
“That’s how I know.”
Poppy frowned. “What do you mean?”
“How I know it was you. You killed the nightbane. You destroyed the gravesite. You are the traitors I was warned about, you want me dead!” Her head pulsed. Something stirred painfully in her veins, like her power was rising, fighting against the bracelets’ hold. “My parents weren’t enough for you, were they? You needed to kill me too?”
Poppy looked at Terra. She looked...almost afraid. “Isla...are you all right?”
Terra got to her feet. “Enough, you sputtering fool,” she said. This was it, wasn’t it? Isla reached for the blade on her thigh.
Poppy gasped at the sight of it.
Terra’s frown only deepened. “We didn’t kill the nightbane. We didn’t destroy any gravesite. And, for the last time, we did not kill your parents.”
Lies. Liars.
“Stop lying to me!” she said, and she felt her power flare in her chest, felt it be stopped by the metal. Her heart was hammering. Her eyes burned.
They had never loved her. They had never cared for her. All they had done was lie to her, and betray her, and use her.
She clutched her necklace, before she could stop herself. Grim was there in half a moment.
“I want them imprisoned.”
Poppy cried out.
Grim looked unsure. “Heart, are you—”
“I said I want them imprisoned,” she said. She could feel something in her chest unfurling. Rage and vengeance spreading. “Or does my word mean nothing here? Am I ruler simply by name? Is my throne a prop? Does this marriage mean anything to you?”
