He was radiant.
Isla swallowed. “You were insufferable that night,” she said, her words coming out without any bite.
Oro took a step toward her. “So were you. Walking into dinner soaking wet, hair dripping. And all I could hear was your voice, ringing through my mind like a curse. I thought it was on purpose, that you were using your abilities to lure me. Then, you were so surly it seemed implausible that was your plan.” He frowned. “When you told me your secret, I was ... taken aback.” He laughed without humor. “For centuries, I had shunned any meaningful connection. And when, for the first time, I began to feel something ... it was for a Wildling that wasn’t even trying to beguile me.”
Oro was so close, she had to tilt her head up to meet his gaze.
For a moment, they looked at each other. He opened his mouth, then closed it. She did the same.
Didn’t know what to say.
“Isla,”he said, her name so soft on his lips. She saw her own emotions reflected in his eyes.
Confusion. Not knowing how it happened.
Just that it did.
Love was a strange thing. She wanted him in so many ways. Had for a while, though she had tried her best to deny it. More than anything, she trusted him.
Wasthatthe basis of love?
She still wasn’t sure.
Of anything.
Isla reached a hand to his chest. Somewhere, she could feel his power, pulsing. An endless stream, gold and gleaming. Sunling, Skyling, Moonling, and Starling. When Isla had used the bondmaker, she had returned each ruler’s power, through the same bridge that had allowed her to take their abilities in the first place. Though she still had access.
There was no armor between her and Oro’s endless pool, since it went both ways. She could dip her hand in and take it all, if she wanted to. And he could do the same to her.
Oro closed his eyes briefly, as if he could feel her fingers running along the rivers of energy contained within him.
He mirrored her movement. And she wondered what he felt ... for, when Isla had killed Aurora with the bondmaker, she had known exactly what she was doing. Not just getting her own power—and Oro’s and Grim’s—back, but alsotakingsomething from her. All her Starling ruler abilities. A loophole, to kill a ruler and their line, fulfill the prophecy and end the curses, while sparing the Starling realm.
Now, Isla had a Starling ruler’s power. And she didn’t want to begin to think of what that meant.
Oro pressed two fingers against her heart. Ran them lower, to the center of her chest.
A vine snaked its way across the balcony and bloomed a red rose.
Oro plucked it. Offered it to her.
She stared down at the flower. A rose with thorns, just like her. It was beautiful. Vicious.
Isla took it, then threw it over her shoulder, clean off the balcony. And stood on her toes so her forehead touched his.
Oro stilled. His eyes were amber and burning, nothing like the emptiness she had glimpsed the first day of the Centennial. He looked at her like she was the thing they had torn apart the island for, the heart he had been desperately trying to find all these years, the needle that had finally threaded him together.
Isla took a shaky breath.
Then she turned to face the sea.
Grim.He had wrecked her. And she had been reckless. Rushed in without thinking, without waiting.
She wouldn’t make that mistake again. Even though she trusted Oro—no one else but him.
Isla climbed onto the railing, the same way she had that first day of the Centennial, when she had sung the song that had drawn Oro out onto his own balcony. He was behind her, an endless source of heat, so close that when she leaned her head back, it rested against his chest.
Her feet kicked air, high above the churning sea. She looked up at him. “Don’t let me fall in.”
