Page 105 of Skyshade
And went to her.
They wrapped around the woman’s arms and chest, just like the etching in the cave. The future the augur had promised.
That was when Isla realized the woman looked like her, more than just from a distance. They shared features. They had the same lips. The same cheekbones. The same exact shade of green eyes.
The Wildling’s smile was wicked. “Now you’re getting it. It’s nice to meet you, Isla. I’m Lark Crown.”
LARK
Lark Crown. Her ancestor. One of the three founders of Lightlark.
“But you’re—”
“Dead?” She motioned down at herself. The snakes continued to wrap around and around, tightening. “As you’ve seen, I’m hard to kill.”
Icy fear spread through her chest...but part of Isla was relieved. All those times she had felt so alone—she wasn’t. She had Wildling family. She had someone who knew what it was like, having these uncontrollable powers. “Where were you?”
“Buried. By someone I trusted.”
Isla didn’t understand. Lark must have known that, because her gaze softened. She looked so much like her. So much like her mother—at least the glimpses Lynx had given her.
“Worlds are built on bones, you see. So many needed to die to feed the lands when we made Lightlark. So much power had to be given. Including our own.”
“For the heart of Lightlark,” she said, her voice just a whisper.
Lark nodded. “The heart had more than that. It was stolen from the world from which we came. A seed of endless ability.” She could feel a whisper of that power in her heart, where it had marked her. “Nightshade didn’t have that. Cronan used his children for power, burying them, but one line could give only so much.” She curled her lip in disgust. “He was supposed to die, to give the ground what it wanted: some of the original power born of the otherworld. Instead, he used me to anchor it.” Vines exploded out of Lark’s hands, coatingthe ground, brambles with thorns everywhere. “He buried me in metal that leeched my power, so I could not use it to escape. My strength fed the land for millennia until I was set free.” By who?
Then, Lark’s words sank in. “Cronan...is alive?”
His coffin was empty, but no...it was impossible.
Though Lark standing here, in front of her—that was impossible too.
Lark nodded, and a chill crested along her arms, remembering everything Grim had said about him.
“Where is he?”
“Back in the world from which we came.”
“He used the portal here,” Isla breathed.
“He created the portal,” Lark said. “He drained me of as much power as he could, over and over, until he had enough to use his flair and rip a hole in this world, to the next.”
“But it should have killed him...the journey.” She remembered what the prophet-follower had said about the portal.
“He is more powerful than you can imagine,” she said. “He could have made it himself, but the power he stole from me ensured he would stay alive.” That fact seemed to haunt her.
“How do you know he wasn’t killed?”
Lark tilted her head at her. “His curses have survived. They were each bound to his blood. They would have died with him.”
His curses.
She had so many questions, but few of them mattered now, when Lark was here before her, threatening to destroy their world. “Why do you want to create a new world? Why do you want to kill everyone?”
“It’s what I should have done in the first place. I should have killed Cronan and Horus and built a world from their bones. I won’t make that mistake again.”
Lark meant to kill Oro and Grim and build a new world with their power.
