No wonder Grim hadn’t been invited to any of the previous Centennials. Isla wondered how Oro could host the person who had invaded his home and killed his kin. The king must have truly been desperate to end the curses.
Why? What was he hiding?
“And what do you think?” Isla asked, voice barely above a whisper and still feeling too loud.
Grim ground his back teeth together. “I told my father to sign the treaty. We had lost too many people. We were going to lose everything if we didn’t agree to peace. As part of the agreement, I was sent to live on Lightlark. A reminder that if Nightshades slipped up, they could kill my father’s only heir. I lived here for twenty years, until—”
Until. He didn’t say the words, but Isla knew the next part well.
Until the curses were cast, and all the rulers of realm died in sacrifice on one horrific night. Until power was transferred to heirs for the last time. Until the new rulers and most of their people fled the island and the incoming storm that would engulf it.
Isla dreaded her next question. But she had to ask it. “Grim, did you cast the curses?”
He looked at her, really looked at her. “If I did, would you ever speak to me again?”
She moved back, tensed. Her nostrils flared. Her answer was immediate. “No. The curses killed countless of my people. Turned us intomonsters.” Her voice thickened. “It’s the reason my parents are both dead.”
Something like sadness flashed in Grim’s eyes. “The curses killed my family too.” His head dipped, and he did not break her gaze. “No, Isla, I did not cast those curses.”
She knew it was foolish to believe any of the other rulers. But Grim’s pain was real. And it mirrored her own.
“So why are you here?” she demanded. “To get revenge? To try to invade Lightlark again?” Another thought formed in her mind, and she paled. “To ensure the cursesdon’tget broken?”
Grim raised an eyebrow. “Why areyouhere, Hearteater? What are you after?”
Her body went still. Lies filled her mouth, ready to be spoken, but Grim grinned. He had felt her nerves. Her hesitancy. He would know she wasn’t telling the truth.
Isla did not break his gaze. But she also did not say a word.
The Nightshade only shook his head. “You know,” he said, making his way toward the wall through which he’d come, “you ask a great deal of questions, Hearteater.” He studied her from head to toe before frowning at her arm, as if he could sense the pain it still gave her. “For someone with so many secrets of her own.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
FROZEN
Isla spent the next day with her arm wrapped in ice. Ella had fetched a bucket of it from the kitchen and replaced it regularly, without question. The burns still hurt. But not as badly. She alternated the ice with her Wildling elixirs. The faster the skin fully healed, the less it would feel like a layer of herself had been sliced away.
Later, the lingering pain—and perhaps the equally pestering thoughts of the Nightshade—had made her restless. Instead of trying to find sleep that wouldn’t come, she roamed the halls, doing her typical snooping.
That was when she noticed the commotion around the wing of the castle that held the arena.
They were setting up for a demonstration. Dozens of islanders milled around, yelling orders. She tried to get as close as possible, to get a hint of what the trial might be. But there were too many people. It wasn’t long before her arm flared in pain again, calling for its ice.
Her efforts hadn’t been fruitless, however. The vast majority of those wandering the halls wore white. Moonlings.
She shouldn’t have been surprised when Ella knocked on her chamber door twenty-four hours later, in the dead of night.
Her skin still burned, but not as sharply. She had tried her best to speed up the healing process after seeing the signs of a trial being set up, doubling her creams and taking other elixirs by mouth. Still, she thought she’d have more time. Only someone as cruel as Cleo would plan their demonstration to happen at midnight.
“A test of desire,” the Moonling ruler said, hands pressed together in prayer. She stood in the center of the arena, which had been transformed into a maze of waterways. Each of the rulers stood on points of its perimeter. Once they dove into the lanes, they wouldn’t be able to see each other anymore, thanks to walls of ice that made the confines of the labyrinth.
There had been no warning. No time to change. That was how Isla had ended up in the freezing snow globe that the stadium had been turned into, in nothing but a tank top and tiny shorts. Surely, she would freeze in the water. The rest of the rulers weren’t in their typical capes and elaborate dress. But they also weren’t in sleepwear. Somehow, they had managed to put on clothes that would fare well in the water. Did something in their powers allow them to do so? Or had they insisted upon the time to change, while Isla had blearily followed Ella through the castle?
“A true ruler must deny the selfish wants of their heart, for the good of their realm. You will be guided through the maze by your own heart. It will lead you to what you desire most. The winner will be decidednotby their desire, but by who can reach it first. For worse than desiring something above the good of one’s realm is not being sure of what you want at all.”
The king stood just a few feet away, eyeing the water like it had personally offended him.Hewasn’t wearing dainty pajamas. He wore gold trousers and a shirt, with sleeves he now carefully rolled up his wrists.
A patch of skin on his hand was slightly swollen, a rash forming.
