When her breathing slowed, she looked up through her curtain of hair and saw Oro standing there, completely dry. He was frowning. “Took you long enough.”
She was on her feet at once, in front of him in less than a second. Her hands fisted and pulled back and struck—
But she was soaking wet, and her head was spinning, and he was too fast.
Oro gripped both of her wrists tightly. “This was all a test, wasn’t it?” she yelled. Her back teeth clattered together. “You wanted to see if I could trust you.”
The untrusting king, the paranoid ruler who always thought everyone was after his power. It was hypocrisy. He wanted her to trust him—when he trusted no one.
Oro stilled. And that was answer enough.
“I knew it.” She fought against his grip, but his giant hands might as well have been chains, wrapped more than fully around her wrists. If only she had brought a sword, a dagger,somethingother than her knife-tipped earrings, which wouldn’t do nearly as much damage as she wanted—
Isla spat at his feet and hoped that told him what she thought of him.
Oro’s frown deepened. “Listen closely, Wildling. I don’t care if you like me. But if we’re going to work together, you need to trust me.”
She bared her teeth at him. “How am I supposed to trust you if you haven’t even told me what you’re looking for?”
He considered her for a moment. Dropped her hands.
Then he said something that sent her rearing back in surprise.
“Are you going to divulge what I tell you to Grim?”
What? Why would he ask her that? Did he think she and the Nightshade were working together?
The Nightshadewasconstantly seeking her out. It was an easy conclusion to make, she supposed.
Isla wondered if perhaps that was the reason Grim made such a show of wanting to be near her. Was it for others to think they had allied?
“No."
He seemed to believe her, because the next thing he said was “I’m looking for Lightlark’s heart.”
Isla raised an eyebrow. “Its what?”
“Its source of power. Its life-force.”
She tilted her head at him. “Isn’t that ...you?”
Oro gave her a strange look. “No. I’m the island’s conduit, if anything. My connection to Lightlark, through blood, binds me to it. Through that bond, I can funnel power.”
“But if you die, Lightlark dies.”
“If its power cannot be funneled or is unbalanced, the island will crumble. Not because I am its heart, but because everything we have built, everything we are, relies on the power I channel.”
“Oh. So ... it has an actual heart?”
“Yes,” he said. “But it doesn’t look like the type you eat.”Interesting.
“Then what does it look like?”
The king shook his head. Already annoyed. It seemed to Isla that he only had an allotted amount of patience and number of words for her, and she had already run out of both. “I don’t know. Every time it blooms, it looks different.”
Blooms?She had so many more questions. Why he was looking for the heart. How it even fit into the prophecy. How he thought she could help him find it.
But before she could say another word, Oro was speaking again. “Yes, Wildling. This was a test of trust. But we did come here for a reason.”
