He didn’t look anything.
Isla narrowed her gaze. “I’m assuming this means you didn’t find it?”
He didn’t humor her with a response before turning around toward the way they had come.
The next morning, Ella arrived with clothing. More long-sleeved shirts that looked just like the one she had torn to ribbons. Pants that were like her other pair—now coated in a layer of dirt—but thicker, with reinforced fabric on the knees, better for the elements. Boots that were far better suited to the task of searching forests and valleys than her now soiled-beyond-repair slippers.
“The king sent this,” the Starling said.
Isla rolled her eyes.
She almost wanted to rebel and wear her same clothes from before, just to spite him. But she thought about her mission. Get him to show her the library. He wouldn’t honor her request yet. But perhaps if he saw her trying to help him, to find the heart ...
Still. She decided shewouldwear her crown that night, as at least the faintest reminder that she wasalsoa ruler of realm, not to be trifled with. Even if she had hidden most of it in the folds of her hair, so it wouldn’t give her away to the mysterious ancient creatures the king had warned her about.
Before they parted ways to search each half of the grove, Isla asked something she had been wondering since he had shared his plan with her: “How did you find out about the heart in the first place?”
He said nothing.
She casually walked the few feet between them, smiling sweetly. She reached up and flicked his crown, just because she knew he had hated it the first time. “You should tell me. Because if you don’t ... I’m not opening another purse plant.”
Oro’s eyes flashed with irritation like crackling firewood. Still, he said nothing.
Isla clicked her tongue. “An untrusting king who always keeps all of his cards close to his chest ...” Her hands circled her waist, fingers pooling in the oversize fabric of her new long-sleeved shirt. She stared pointedly at his arm, where the bluish gray had started spreading. The sign of the king’s impending death. “Tell me, how has that worked out for you?”
Oro glared down at her. He took a breath that seemed to shake his shoulders. Power emanated from him in thick waves—a sharp wind she couldn’t see, a riptide she couldn’t pull free from. Suddenly, the cool air went hot as Wildling.
The force of him made her knees wobble. But she couldn’t allow him the satisfaction of seeing that. Instead, she smiled again, blinked her long lashes, and lifted on her toes so she was just inches from his face as she said, “Well?”
Immediately, his power was ripped from between them, swallowed up. He did not flinch away from her proximity. “I’ll take my chances, Wildling,” he said coolly before flicking her own crown. The movement sent her back on her heels, stumbling a few steps. Her head immediately throbbed.How hard had he flicked it?She reached up to trace her finger along the metal and came upon a deep indentation.
Something in Oro’s eyes glinted with wicked pleasure as anger twisted her features.
“You dented it!”
He simply turned away and began walking toward his side of the valley.
“Fix it!” she demanded.
All she saw was his back as he got farther and farther away, golden cape billowing softly in the wind.
“Wretch,” she whispered angrily under her breath. “If we weren’t paired, I really would gut you.”
That made him stop. He turned like he had heard every word.
She made a gesture at him that she hoped proved just how much she had meant them.
Oro frowned and turned back around.
And only because he was her best chance at getting into the Sun Isle library and finding the bondbreaker did she fix her hands in angry fists and walk toward her rows of flora.
They spent three more nights searching the purse plants. They worked from after the sun went down to an hour before it went up, enough time for the king to reach the castle before day reached him. Just as her room filled with light, Isla would collapse into bed, sometimes without even a bath, exhausted.
Her fingers were stiff, the muscles in her palms sore. Her arms even hurt after lifting them one after the other, thousands of times. Her neck ached from straining to peer into the centers of the plants. Her lower back was a lost cause.
Every day, Oro and Isla got closer in proximity, starting from the edges of the valley and making their way to the center.
By the thirty-first day of the Centennial, they met in the middle. Both covered in dirt. Both tired. Both frustrated, if the look they gave each other was any indication.
