Isla marveled at them. Enemies, united.
She was lifted off her feet by Lynx, who threw her onto his back without stopping. She gripped his saddle and joined the fighting.
The Nightshades didn’t stand a chance. They were almost easily overpowering them.
Then a woman came from the sea, on the back of a swell that dwarfed even the Singing Mountains.
The water crashed across the Mainland, and soldiers were covered, then frozen where they stood. They couldn’t move their legs. Lynx only avoided the ice by jumping at the last moment. His paws cracked as they landed on the frozen ground.
Suddenly, Cleo was right in front of her. She wasn’t wearing a dress. No, now she wore a fighting suit that covered every inch of her body except for her hands and face. It was white, with dark-blue detailing. She frowned at Isla and Lynx. “What a pleasant ... pet,” she said, tilting her head. “You’re on the wrong side, though, Wildling. You said you wanted your realm to live, didn’t you?”
It wasn’t lost on her that Cleo hadn’t killed the Lightlark soldiers. She could have frozen them solid, but she didn’t. There was still a chance she would change sides.
Isla understood her now more than ever: A woman who had dedicated her entire life to leading her realm. Who had allowed herself one happiness. Who had lost it.
“Why are you doing this?” Isla asked.
“For him,” she said.Her son.
“I don’t understand.”
Cleo reached down into her collar and pulled out the necklace she wore. The blue stone shimmered. “The other world has power we can’t begin to fathom. Souls can rise once more.”
She understood now. Cleo believed there was a chance to see her son again.
“I can’t let you use the portal,” she said.
Cleo frowned. “I hoped you would see reason,” she said. “We really do need you.”
The Moonling raised her arms, and the ocean rushed to wrap around her body, curling, alive, forming her shape. She rose into the air, on a swirl of sea.
She shot her watery hand out, and her arm became a rope of water that sent Isla flying back, right off Lynx. Her leopard roared. Before she cracked her head against Cleo’s ice, a bed of flowers bloomed behind her, bursting through the frost, breaking her fall.
Cleo laughed, the sound muted and distorted by the water surrounding her. “Flowers won’t help you.”
Isla slowly rose. She took a step, and the ice broke. Flowers sprouted in her wake. Vines formed down her arms, long thorns growing against her knuckles.
She had been watching the Moonling fight. She used her hands. She needed them to wield water.
It was impossible to grip Cleo’s wrists in her water-covered form. Isla’s restraints would slip right off the sea.
Cleo was too busy staring Isla down to notice that Enya had become a living flame behind her. An understanding passed between Isla and the Sunling.
Isla charged. Cleo watched her, water swirling, towering.
So did Enya. She jumped, wings made of flames uncurling from her back and wrapping around the Moonling ruler.
Cleo was quick—she sent Enya backward with a thick stream of sea. But, for just a moment, Cleo’s water shield had melted, weakened by the flames.
It was all Isla needed. Roots flew up from the ground and tied around the Moonling’s wrists in seconds. They trapped her legs next. One wrapped around her neck for good measure. Flowers bloomed on the restraints. Isla plucked one.
“The flowers helped,” she said.
Isla didn’t see any more Moonlings. Cleo had a legion. Was she saving them for after Grim’s own army was finished?
Part of her feared that Wildlings might fight alongside Nightshade ... but her people were nowhere to be found.
Isla wondered if that was better or worse.
