Grim looked at her. “Heart ...” he said, so gently. “What do you mean?”
She saw flashes of her vision again. The darkness, eating everything. Skin sliding from bone. Bone reduced to ash. Death, everywhere, and Grim standing in the middle of it—
It looked familiar now.
Isla started sputtering. “The village. The people. Their skin melting from them, the shadows. Then the—the darkness came intome—”
No.
The world went silent.
The vision was not a look at the future. Not an example of the lengths Grim would go to get her.
It was a memory.
And Grim wasn’t the one who had summoned those shadows, wasn’t the one who had killed those hundreds of innocent people.
“It was me,” she said. “It was me.”
She saw herself, returning to the place where it had all happened, where she had offered all her power she didn’t know she had to save Grim. She saw the village, on the outskirts of the scar. Charred. There were only shapes of people—of children—where they once stood.
She saw herself collapsing on the ground, sobbing. Screaming, “I did this. I did this.”
Oro was in front of her now, hands pressed against her face, taking her out of the memory. “You are not a monster.” Was that what she had been saying over and over? “You are not defined by one mistake.”
But it was notone mistake.
Isla had used emotions to wield her power multiple times. Recklessly. Even after Oro had warned her, she hadn’t been able to help herself, she had done it again and again.
She was not to be trusted. She was reckless, dangerous, amonster.
Enya was right. Oro deserved so much better.
“Get away from me,” she screamed. She tried to step away, but Oro took her hand. “Let me go.”
She understood now how it was even a possibility that she might kill Oro. Just byproximityto her, he was in danger.
She had no control of her emotions. Of her powers.
She would kill him. One day, she would be overcome with emotion, she would lose control yet again, and she would kill him. She saw it so clearly now.
“Let. Me. Go,” she bellowed, her voice thick, tears falling into her mouth.
She tried to wrestle herself away, but Oro didn’t budge. He didn’t understand; he didn’t know how much of a danger she was to him—
Grim’s voice seemed to rumble the world as he said, “Let go of my wife.”
There it was. The final missing piece.
BOUND
That word,wife, unlocked a door in her mind that had been stubbornly jammed.
She saw it. Hands joined together, before an altar. Then, against a bed frame.
She saw months of suffering with guilt for having killed so many innocent people. She saw herself begging Grim to take the memory of what she had done away. She saw him refusing.
Memories fluttered, until they snagged on one last moment. She saw herself wearing her Centennial dress. She watched Grim take a necklace out of his pocket and present it to her. One with the biggest black diamond she had ever seen. “In Nightshade, instead of rings, we give necklaces,” he said. “I should have given this to you before. It’s a sign of our commitment. Once I put it on, it is on forever. Only with your death will it be released.”
