“Yes.”
“Yet you won’t kill a tree?”
Isla glared at him. “The people I killed deserved it. This tree has done nothing. Who am I to end it? For the sake of ... practice?”
Remlar frowned. “Practice? I thought you needed answers. Answers to how to save thousands of people. A tree is but a small sacrifice.”
“No,” she said again.
Remlar grinned. “You have killed countless plants. When I untangled your powers, you destroyed an entire forest.”
“That was an accident!”
“Does it change the fact that you are responsible for killing the woods?”
Isla closed her eyes tightly. No. It didn’t.
Remlar sighed. “Nature is a flowing force,” he said. “You destroy one tree, you create another. Pick one flower, plant another. The ash it turns into becomes fertilizer for another. It is a never-ending turning of a wheel, and there is no ending, or beginning, just constant turning, turning, turning.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“The tree does not care if you kill it,” he said. “It will return as something better, something different. Everything that is ruined—especially by your hand, especiallyhere—is reclaimed, remade.”
Could that be true?
Remlar said it again. “Kill the tree. Leech it of its life ... then create something new.”
Create something new.If Remlar was right, she wasn’t truly killing it ... just turning it into something different.
Isla placed her hand against the tree.
Shadows curled out of her chest, flowing through her, turning liquid. They unfolded, and expanded, until she tasted metal in her mouth, and then, through her fingers ... there was energy. Not only pouring out ... but pouring in. Something vital, flowing out of the tree, and into her.
It was delicious.
Like gulping water after a day in the desert, Isla was suddenly desperately parched. The bark cracked beneath her fingers, split, shriveled. Branches and leaves fell and were ash before they hit the ground. By the time she was done, all that remained of the tree was a skeleton.
Isla was gasping. She was too full, a glass overflowing. She made it one step before falling to her hands and knees.
Life exploded out of her.
Dozens of tiny trees, just saplings, burst from the ground, breaking through the dirt.
She flipped over to her back, breathing like she still couldn’t get enough air. Just a moment later, Remlar’s head and the tops of his wings were blocking her view of the sky.
“I was right, Wildling,” he said, sounding quite pleased with himself. She heard his voice before falling into another memory. “You are the only person living who is able to turn death ... into life.”
BEFORE
She was doing it. She was really going to work with ... him. The Nightshade appeared in the corner of her room, as if emerging from her thoughts, shadow melting into a ruler dressed all in black.
He didn’t say a word. He just looked at her, frowning, as though he found every part of her disappointing.
Isla glared at him. “You do knowyouasked to work with me,” she said.
Grim frowned even more. She hadn’t known a frown of that magnitude was even possible. “I am aware,” he said curtly.
With about as much revulsion as possible, he outstretched his hand. It was gloved this time, as if he couldn’t bear having his skin touch hers.
