Terra repeated her question, dark-green eyes the same color as the leaves and ivy that wrapped around the Wildling palace, a skin over everything. The same color as Isla’s. “Are you ready?”
Isla nodded, though her fingers trembled as she reached for the crown in front of her. It was a simple gold band, adorned with golden buds, leaves, and a hissing snake. She placed it atop her head, careful not to interfere with the clips that kept her long, dark-brown hair out of her face.
“Beautiful,” Poppy said. Isla didn’t need to hear the compliment to know it was true. Beauty was a Wildling’s gift—and curse. A curse that had gotten her own mother killed. Which only made the fact that she supposedly had her mother’s face all the more unsettling. Poppy met Isla’s eyes through the mirror and said fiercely, “You are enough, little bird. Better than any of them.”
If only that was true.
Isla could feel a jolt of panic breaking her features in half. What if this was the last time she ever saw her guardians? What if she never returned to her room? Her hands acted on instinct, reaching for each of her guardians, wanting to touch them one last time.
Before she could, Terra gave her a stern look that made her go still.
Sentimentality is selfish,her stare seemed to say.
The Centennial wasn’t about her. It was about saving her realm. Her people.
Chastised, Isla straightened her spine. She stood slowly, the heaviness of her crown far greater than its weight. “I know what I must do,” she said. Each ruler arrived at the Centennial with a plan. Terra and Poppy had hammered theirs into Isla since she was a child. “I will follow your orders.”
“Good,” Terra said. “Because you are our only hope.”
The Wildling castle was more outside than in. The halls were bridges. Trees extended their arms into the corridor, branches catching gently on her dress as if to say goodbye. Leaves rustled at Isla’s sides as she walked through the endless chambers she wasn’t allowed access to, Poppy and Terra right behind her. Vines crept across walls. Birds flew in and out as they pleased. Wind howled through the halls in a breeze that made Isla’s cape billow behind her. She wore deep green to honor her realm, a fabric that clung to her ribs, waist, knees, and pooled at her feet. Her cape was made of gossamer, sheer enough to make its traditional purpose for modesty obsolete. And that choice represented her realm just as much as its color.
Wildlings had always been proud of their bodies, beauty, and ability. They had always loved wildly, lived freely, and fought fiercely.
Five hundred years before, each of the six realms—Wildling, Starling, Moonling, Skyling, Sunling, and Nightshade—were cursed, their strengths turned into their own personal poisons. Each curse was uniquely wicked.
Wildlings’ was twofold. They were cursed to kill anyone they fell in love with—and to live exclusively on human hearts. They turned into terrifyingly beautiful monsters with the wicked power to seduce with a single look.
Thousands of Wildling men and women had been killed off since.Love became forbidden. Reckless. Fewer children were born ... and daughters had always been more common for their realm. Though love had various forms, men were killed more often when the rules were broken, and they had slowly become a small community of mostly warrior women. Feared. Hated. Weak, since fewer people meant less power. The Centennial was the only chance to end their curses, to return to their previous glory again, to regain the power they so badly needed.Islawas their only chance.
You are our only hope .. .
She heard them before she saw them. Chanting their ancient words, clashing their blades together like instruments. Wildling control over nature was on full display. Flowers bloomed and spilled over the balcony, down into the hall, not stopping until they reached her feet. They grew exponentially, doubling over themselves in a puddle of petals and rising to her ankles. According to lore, a thousand years before, Wildlings had been able to grow entire forests with half a thought, move mountains with a flick of their wrists.
Now, hundreds of years after the curse and just as much time away from the island’s power, their abilities had dwindled to barely more than party tricks.
Isla walked carefully over the flowers until the castle walls ended and she faced hundreds of cheering Wildlings.
The trees above bloomed cherries and berries and bloodred blossoms, which fell onto the crowd in a colorful rain. Animals crept from the woods and into the group, sitting beside their companions. Wildling powers varied in their mastery of nature, but they often included affinity with animals—Terra had a great panther named Shadow she spoke to as easily as she communicated with Isla. Poppy had a hummingbird that liked to nestle in her hair.
When Isla nodded, the crowd fell silent.
“It is my honor to represent our realm this Centennial.” Isla’s pulse quickened, a drum along her bones. She looked across the crowd, atstunning, hopeful faces. Some Wildlings wore dresses made from bits of fabric woven through with leaves and vines. Some wore nothing at all except for the swords draped down their backs. Some had clearly just fed, their lips stained deep red. Isla looked and tried her best not to tremble. Not to let her voice crack, or stumble, or make them question for a moment why their ruler often hid behind the thick walls of her castle. Why attendants were banned from entering her quarters. She tried not to wonder how many of these Wildlings had heard this same declaration a hundred years before, from a different ruler—how many of them were even left, after the recent string of deaths. She made a promise, because that was what her people were looking for. Reassurance. Strength. “I vow to shatter our curse once and for all.”
They would have every right to be worried. Isla’s failure would doom them all for at least another century. And there had been four failed Centennials already. Isla clenched her back teeth together, waiting for them to see right through her—waiting for her perception of what they wanted to be wrong.
But the morning air ignited with yells and blades raised high overhead. Birds screeched from the treetops. Wind rustled leaves into a roar. Relieved, Isla walked down the stairs, smeared in petals, nature blossoming at her feet as the crowd parted, making a path toward their most ancient twin trees.
Their roots crested into the air, then braided together, forming a towering archway, round as a looking glass. The other side of the forest waited beyond, safe and familiar. But that wasn’t where she was going. Isla swallowed. She had been preparing for this moment her entire life. Terra’s and Poppy’s hands found her shoulders.
Isla walked through the portal that only worked once every hundred years, her last words to her guardians fresh in her mind:I will follow your orders.
And wished they hadn’t been a lie.
CHAPTER TWO
THE ISLAND
The portal rippled closed behind her, choking the cheers into silence. Only Isla’s ragged breath remained. She took a single step forward, and light like a thousand dying stars and suns blinded her.
