She expected him to ignore her question, like he had before, but he said, “No. I haven’t for a long while.”
“Why?” Her voice, surprisingly, was gentle. Not judgmental, the way it always had been with him.
Oro looked at her tree, its fruits ripe and swollen with juice and so heavy the branches dipped. “I have a lot of guilt,” he said quietly. “That keeps me awake.”Guilt.She knew the word intimately.
“How did you find me?” she asked suddenly. She remembered that night in shatters, like a broken, scattered mirror.
“In the hallway? I followed the trail of petals.”
She shook her head. “No ... before.”In the Moon Isle woods.
The air cooled and stilled, and Isla hummed softly to its current. “I heard the bird,” he said. “That’s how I found you. I followed the bird.”
Stupid bird,she thought. The same one that had almost gotten her killed. At least it had done some good.
She was suddenly tired, her energy unraveling as easily as her dress had. Her eyelids were heavy, and she smiled. She lay down on the couch, her head against his leg. The drink made her mind spin behind her eyes, and she groaned. “I have honey in my head,” she said, because that was exactly what it felt like.
Oro laughed, and it was such a surprise that she wished her eyes would open to see if he really had.
Isla woke up warm. Wine still fogged her mind, but it was more of a mist than its previous storm. She remembered the celebration in pieces—Celeste coming for her. Noticing the guards. Drinking wine. Going to the castle. Ripping her costume off. Her eyes flew open.
Her head was in Oro’s lap, her cheek against his leg. He was leaned back against the couch, exactly as she remembered him.
Except he was asleep.
She wondered what in the realms went into wine. And knew why Terra and Poppy had kept it from her. Isla remembered her conversation the night before and shuddered—her questions had been so brazen. But Oro had answered them, hadn’t he?
How long had they been asleep? She turned to the balcony. Thecurtains were closed, but no sunlight peeked through their slight gap. Night, then. Which meant a party was going on at that very moment, in the gardens below.
Oro looked more peaceful than she had ever seen him. It almost pained her to poke him in his chest. But he had to attend at least the last few hours of Carmel. He startled, a hand going up quickly in defense, almost reaching her throat. His eyes were wide for half a second when he saw her across from him in the darkness. Then he straightened and lowered his hand.
“You fell asleep,” she said. “Thank—thank you for staying with me. I’m sorry, I think you missed part of the ... party.”
Oro’s eyebrows came together a bit, and Isla wondered if he had forgotten about it. He did look better. The purple crescents beneath his eyes were fainter, the set of his jaw stronger.
Isla remembered the sound she had fallen asleep to—Oro, laughing. And not meanly, the way he always had. She had never heard him truly laugh before. As she looked at him, she wondered if she really had imagined it. He was frowning as he studied the room. As if he regretted having agreed to step inside it.
Isla rose. She didn’t dare look down at her dress, which she knew was in shambles, ripped high up her thigh. Oro didn’t look either as he stood.
“I should go to the celebration,” he said gruffly.
Isla nodded. “You should.” Without thinking, she reached up and fixed his crown, which had gone wayward while he was sleeping.
Her eyes met his when she was finished. And there was something like anger there. She fell back on her heels, surprised.
“Two more places on Moon Isle,” he said flatly, unmoved by her expression. “Tomorrow, we’ll go to one. The next day, the other. Then we’re done.”
“Good,” she said curtly before turning to her balcony and slipping through the doors.
The night air was like a caress, rustling the remaining petals on her dress. Far below, she could hear the celebration—the clink of glasses and hiss of conversation and pluck of joyful music.
She was still on the balcony an hour later when pounding sounded against her door. Her eyes rolled, expecting Oro might have returned to check on her, on his way to bed. She opened it with a sigh.
And found Ella standing there, red in the face. That was when she noticed that the party she could hear from her balcony had gone quiet. The music had died.
“What’s happened?” Isla asked, retrieving her dagger in a flash.
Ella didn’t even wince at the weapon as she said, panting, “A ruler has been attacked.”
