novelxo Chapter Skyshade: LARK
Lark Crown. Her ancestor. One of the three founders of Lightlark.
“But you’re—”
“Dead?” She motioned down at herself. The snakes continued to wrap around and around, tightening. “As you’ve seen, I’m hard to kill.”
Icy fear spread through her chest . . . but part of Isla was relieved. All those times she had felt so alone—she wasn’t. She had Wildling family. She had someone who knew what it was like, having these uncontrollable powers. “Where were you?”
“Buried. By someone I trusted.”
Isla didn’t understand. Lark must have known that, because her gaze softened. She looked so much like her. So much like her mother—at least the glimpses Lynx had given her.
“Worlds are built on bones, you see. So many needed to die to feed the lands when we made Lightlark. So much power had to be given. Including our own.”
“For the heart of Lightlark,” she said, her voice just a whisper.
Lark nodded. “The heart had more than that. It was stolen from the world from which we came. A seed of endless ability.” She could feel a whisper of that power in her heart, where it had marked her. “Nightshade didn’t have that. Cronan used his children for power, burying them, but one line could give only so much.” She curled her lip in disgust. “He was supposed to die, to give the ground what it wanted: some of the original power born of the otherworld. Instead, he used me to anchor it.” Vines exploded out of Lark’s hands, coating the ground, brambles with thorns everywhere. “He buried me in metal that leeched my power, so I could not use it to escape. My strength fed the land for millennia until I was set free.” By who?
Then, Lark’s words sank in. “Cronan . . . is alive?”
His coffin was empty, but no . . . it was impossible.
Though Lark standing here, in front of her—that was impossible too.
Lark nodded, and a chill crested along her arms, remembering everything Grim had said about him.
“Where is he?”
“Back in the world from which we came.”
“He used the portal here,” Isla breathed.
“He created the portal,” Lark said. “He drained me of as much power as he could, over and over, until he had enough to use his flair and rip a hole in this world, to the next.”
“But it should have killed him . . . the journey.” She remembered what the prophet-follower had said about the portal.
“He is more powerful than you can imagine,” she said. “He could have made it himself, but the power he stole from me ensured he would stay alive.” That fact seemed to haunt her.
“How do you know he wasn’t killed?”
Lark tilted her head at her. “His curses have survived. They were each bound to his blood. They would have died with him.”
His curses.
She had so many questions, but few of them mattered now, when Lark was here before her, threatening to destroy their world. “Why do you want to create a new world? Why do you want to kill everyone?”
“It’s what I should have done in the first place. I should have killed Cronan and Horus and built a world from their bones. I won’t make that mistake again.”
Lark meant to kill Oro and Grim and build a new world with their power.
Anger formed a flame in her heart as her power surged forward. But her ancestor was impossible to kill. The best thing she could do now is get as much information as possible, anything she could possibly use to defeat her.
“And me?” Isla dared ask.
She understood the prophet-followers’ warning now. Lark was the Wildling traitor that wanted her dead. Not Terra. Not Poppy. Not Wren. Not any of her subjects.
Lark was the one who killed the nightbane. She was the one who turned up the graves. She was the one who killed those people.
She was the true snake-queen.
Her voice was emotionless. “I planned to kill you too, but you might be more useful to me alive. You have access to all the realms’ power.” She looked at her as if she could see through her. “The heart of Lightlark has marked you. I can feel its energy. I need its power to create a new world. You will help me find it.”
How could she believe Isla would give up on her world so easily? “I’ll never help you. I don’t care if you’re my blood.”
Lark tilted her head. “Is that true? You’re so lonely. I can see it all over your face. You’re alone in this world, Isla. No one understands you. You’re a traitor everywhere.”
How could she know that?
“I know you better than you think,” Lark said, smiling. “You are so much like me. You have no idea.”
Isla bared her teeth. “I would never kill innocents for power.”
“Oh? But haven’t you?”
She felt like she couldn’t breathe. Suddenly, the darkness, the muskiness of the rock, the narrowness of the underground . . . it felt like the world was closing around her.
“I can give you life, Isla,” Lark said, and time seemed to still.
The word was barely a whisper. “What?”
“I can save you. You have seen what I can do.”
She had seen.
She wanted to live, she wanted to save Nightshade. But not at the cost of this world.
Isla needed to warn Grim. Oro. They had no idea what had been awoken. They had no idea what was coming.
“Think about it,” Lark said, seeming to know what was going to happen next.
Isla reached above and formed a tunnel in the ground, her skyre directing her Wildling abilities, sharpening them. She crashed through the rock until she surfaced, sunlight spilling all around her. She was panting, her heartbeat like a merciless drum in her chest. She coughed up dirt.
This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening.
Isla turned. The Nightshade castle glimmered in the distance.
It was surrounded by an army. Grim’s army, just as Astria had said. They wore the black shining armor.
She took a deep breath, then shot into the air toward the keep, using her Skyling power. She landed roughly on the steps in front of the door, guarding it from the coup. Searching for Astria or Grim.
She barely got her arms up before a weapon was upon her. She felt the force of the blow through the crown of her head as her blade rushed up to meet a sword longer than her leg. She wasn’t prepared—she wasn’t in armor.
The warrior went to skewer her through the stomach, but she whirled to the side and cut off his hand with a blade-like slice of Starling energy. It fell to the floor, and she stole his sword.
She expected blood. Screaming. Cursing.
Instead, the warrior’s hand fell, and he didn’t even look like he noticed. He kept advancing.
This was not Grim’s army.
This was something worse. Something buried that had risen.
She thought about all the graves that had been ransacked. She thought about how Lark had been able to regenerate herself.
Before she had time to even consider the possibility, the warrior pulled another blade from his belt and attempted to stab her in the throat. She ducked and struck her stolen sword through the gaps in his armor, right in the stomach. It stuck all the way through him, but he didn’t so much as falter.
Dozens of soldiers were closing in. She was surrounded. Grim’s true army was approaching now, portaled in spurts by their ruler, but it was impossible to see who was who, when they wore the same metal.
Confusion, clashing swords, chaos, as the warriors discovered what they were up against. Then, death. Soon, she could tell which were Grim’s soldiers by all the blood. By the bellows of pain, as they fought an enemy that felt none.
They were losing.
She shot into the sky, flying high above. She could wipe the army clean with a burst of her ability, especially with her skyre. But the soldiers were all interspersed, battling one another. What if she injured Grim’s army as well?
Did she care? She remembered their brutality as she had fought against them on the other side . . .
Yes. She did care. To have any chance against Lark, they would need Grim’s forces.
She closed her eyes, focusing on the seed of power in her chest. The world dimmed. Her panic quieted. Her abilities were a horizonless sea and her skyre was a gleaming sieve, filtering it through, shaping it into a scythe. Her marking burned as she summoned its control, trading it for a shred of her essence. She breathed in. Out.
And unleashed.
Her arms flung out, and from her fingers, silver sparks exploded, smothering the world, rippling, targeting only the bloodless soldiers. They fell into shards, breaking until they were nothing but indistinguishable pieces.
Grim’s army stopped. Looked up at her.
And they started to run, fleeing as if she was the enemy about to strike them down. She found herself smiling. That was what they expected. They hated her. She found herself wondering if she should do it. Wondering if she should give into that rage, that revenge. Especially the cowards who ran, when there was a battle right in front of them.
In the end, she let them flee. Let them fear her.
Some remained. They stood firm in their places. She nodded down to them.
Then she threw her arm out, and shadows formed a tidal wave, washing over the entire army, swallowing only the ones who didn’t bleed.
When the darkness cleared and Grim’s remaining forces found themselves whole, they advanced toward the next wave of bloodless soldiers.
Again and again she struck, clearing the way for the Nightshade warriors. Still, Lark’s soldiers were relentless, attacking from all sides; and some of Grim’s army were cut down, no match for an enemy that felt no pain. That didn’t bleed. That kept going, even while missing limbs.
She raged until all the bloodless army was vanquished. She breathed heavily, nearly spent—and that was when she heard them. Distant screams coming from the direction of the closest village.
They needed her.
As she raced through the sky, she saw mile after mile of warriors marching as one.
Thousands of them.
Bigger than Grim’s current army. Millennia worth of dead, risen.
Her throat went dry. There were too many. And they were headed toward all the villages, as if to recruit new soldiers.
One had already been infiltrated, the wall around the town turned to rubble. The bloodless warriors were clogging the streets, advancing, marching over dead bodies that were being pulled into the soil. Dead innocents.
Villagers screamed as they ran away, only going quiet as the soldiers cut down everyone in their path.
Ash. Bodies. Shapes—
She wouldn’t let these people die.
With the force of a meteor, Isla landed in the streets, right between the bloodless soldiers and the villagers in their path.
She gathered the remaining power in the center of her chest—and set it free.
Oro’s flames—fire tinged in blue—exploded out of her, filling the tunnel of the town. It raged, eating the bloodless soldiers, burning them, until their bodies came apart before her. When it all ran out, she could barely breathe, and only singed armor remained. She folded over, chest heaving.
A crash sounded behind her, and she whirled around, hands up, ready to strike—only to find Wraith standing in the middle of the town.
Grim was on his back.
She was in his arms in a moment.
He looked her over frantically. “We searched everywhere. Lynx was tracking your scent—”
She didn’t realize she was crying until Grim frowned and wiped her ears away, cupping her face. “Heart,” he said steadily. “Who took you?”
She told him everything. Who the traitor was. What she looked like. What happened when Isla delivered what should have been a dozen deaths upon her.
Grim had been right. The recent deaths . . . it hadn’t been her.
It had been something far worse. “This army . . . it falls only to rise again. Even with limbs missing. Even with their heads missing.”
“I know. Hundreds of people are dead.”
“Then her army will only grow.”
She looked around at the injured villagers. The blood painting the streets. The screams and cries surrounding them.
Her power was spent; she felt ready to collapse, but they couldn’t leave the other villages defenseless. “We need to go,” she said. Grim nodded.
They raced to get on Wraith’s back, and then they were off.
Nightshade had been overtaken. Every single village was being swarmed by soldiers. They were everywhere, like an endless plague, worse than the storms.
“Call back your forces,” she told Grim. “Portal any of your people in our path away. So we don’t end up killing them all.”
Grim did.
She watched them retreat, building up her strength. Calling upon her skyre, using it to leech her of more power, to fill her with all that was left.
Then, from Wraith’s back, they both raged. Fire met shadow and killed everything in its path.
She knew Grim was one of the most powerful rulers. She had seen him fight. Still, she hadn’t been prepared to watch his shadows swallow the world. They rippled across the entirety of his land, devouring everything for miles. Even the trees were cut down, the ground wiped clean.
He could skin the world clean of life. She could see that. It might have scared her before, but now she almost smiled, watching the soldiers become nothing. Watching everything become nothing.
Her shadows joined his, filling in every gap, until they formed a united wall, an endless surge that made the ground itself tremble in fear. She threw all of herself into it, every bit of pain and fury and pulse of the skyre. Isla screamed as the power was scraped out of her, as every bit seemed to be eaten up.
“You’re going to hurt yourself,” Grim said, but she kept going. Children were dying. Innocents. She heard their screams, and they mixed with the ones she’d heard in her head constantly for months.
They landed in another village, and she started to fight with a shimmering starblade, formed from energy. Everything in her path died. Over and over and over she fought, blinded by purpose and rage. She used every ability in her arsenal, and when one was snuffed out—sapped to the dregs—she reached for another. And another. She fought, and depleted her power, until it was just a whisper, and then she used her swords.
She didn’t stop until Wraith was behind her again and Grim’s hand was on her hip. She whipped around to find him covered in dirt and blood.
She realized with horror it was his; the soldiers couldn’t bleed. She raced to find a major wound, but it was mainly cuts.
“They’re gone, heart,” he said.
“What?”
“They just . . . left. Like they had been called off. Their bodies went straight through the ground.”
Lark must be replenishing her forces.
She remembered what Lark had said . . . what she had offered. Life.
But this wasn’t life. Not truly. Her forces had been drained of their souls. They were just bodies.
Grim looked spent. More exhausted than she had ever seen him. “She has an endless army. One that can never die. Never be stopped.”
There would be no winning against a force like this.
Screams still rang around them. The cries of the injured and dying. Grim portaled them all to the Wildling keep. They didn’t have any healing elixirs left, but they had basic remedies. It wouldn’t be enough. People would die . . .
This was what Lark had wanted, she knew, rage boiling through her veins. She had killed the nightbane so more people would die when she attacked. So that more people would join her army.
This entire time, Lark had been planning against them.
Grim portaled her to her room so she could get her starstick. She needed to help get more people to the Wildling keep. But just as she went to grab it, it glowed. Then pulsed, as if trying to tell her something. Tentatively, she grabbed it.
When she fell through her puddle of stars, it wasn’t to her family’s home.
The blacksmith was pacing his forge. For once, he looked happy to see her. It was hot inside, as if he had just finished making something.
He handed her a dagger by the blade.
She frowned down at it. “It’s not time yet. Not for a couple of weeks.”
“I’ve called in my favor early.” He looked restless, a single eye glued to the entrance, as if he was waiting for something. “I trust you’ve seen her?”
Lark. Of course. Isla nodded. Understanding washed over her. “Has she visited you?”
“Not yet,” he said. “But she will.” His tone was ominous.
Isla realized then that the blacksmith must have been the one to put Lark in containment. She asked him, and he confirmed.
“If she’s this powerful, how did he do it?” Isla asked. “How did Cronan trap her? How did he wound her?”
He smiled ruefully. “He didn’t. Lark loved him. She cannot be incapacitated, but she sleeps, just like the rest of us.”
“He took her while she was sleeping?”
He nodded.
For a moment, she almost felt bad for the Wildling. She couldn’t imagine such a betrayal. Cronan was truly ruthless.
“We don’t have much time,” the blacksmith said. “That’s why I summoned you.”
She frowned. “How did you do that, with my portaling device?”
He tilted his head at her, single eye narrowing. “Who, Wildling, do you think made it?”
Of course. She owed him so much, for creating the one thing that had made her childhood tolerable.
“And I’ve made you something else.” He unveiled what he had been working on for months—a suit of armor. A breastplate fitted exactly to her measurements, by the look of it, and crafted from the thinnest metal imaginable. Sleeves of tightly woven chainmail and boots of leather and metal. Pants of the same material. The metal was a sparkling silver with roses painted onto the wrist plates. It glimmered beneath the light. Shademade.
This was what had been keeping him busy.
“Why?” she asked, in awe at the beauty of his craft.
“You will need it.”
“To fight Lark?”
He nodded. “For that . . . and so much more.”
But he had begun working on this before Lark had attacked. “How—”
“I’m sure by now the prophet’s followers have found you.”
Pain lanced through her as she remembered Sairsha and the others, dead by her hand. She nodded.
“I never believed in their prophecies . . . not until I met you. And then I understood. Who your parents were . . . your flair . . . it all began making sense.”
“What did?”
“That you were born to either destroy the world or save it.”
She paled at his words, the ones she had heard before. Isla shook her head. “I don’t want this armor. I don’t want this role.”
“Yet they’re yours anyway.” He presented her with a set of knives, which fit into thin pockets in her armor. Every little piece had been considered, crafted for her. Her eyes burned, looking at it. “Remember, Isla. Weapons are nothing without those who wield them.”
He looked past her, as if seeing something she couldn’t. He frowned.
“She’s coming.”
Isla imagined he’d made enchanted devices to warn if anyone was nearby. Or maybe he could sense the Wildling’s blood. He was suddenly rushing, looking around his forge as if making sure he didn’t miss anything.
“I can’t be killed, but I can be compelled,” he said. “My skills have been twisted by people like her for millennia. She will use me to destroy this world, just as she did to make it. She needs me. Do not allow her to have me.”
Isla shook her head. “But I might need you,” she said, tears sweeping down her cheeks. “I—I might need you to help me save it.”
The blacksmith paused then. Smiled. “You have always had everything you needed.” He handed her one of the daggers from her armor. It was sharp and efficient. Perfect for just this task. “Now, make it quick, Wildling.” She gripped the hilt. Hesitated.
“Your name,” she said. “What is your name?” She had never asked before.
He squinted. His eyes glazed over, as if seeing past her, to another life. Another world. “I—I don’t remember,” he said softly. His gaze focused again, as he looked to the door. “She’s almost here. Now, Wildling.”
Isla struck.
Just before the metal touched his skin, his hand curled around the blade. “I remember now,” he said quickly. “Ferrar. My name is Ferrar.” He let her go.
Ferrar gasped as the blade went through his heart. Tears traced Isla’s cheeks, one after the other, as he slumped over. She fought with all her strength to keep him upright, but he was too heavy, so she sank to the ground alongside him.
Brambles began filling the forge. She could feel Lark’s power overtaking it.
She wiped her cheek against her shoulder and tried to grab the suit of armor, but it fell apart into several pieces, too many for her to carry. The ground shook with Lark’s power, and Isla refused to leave without Ferrar’s gift, not when it was the last thing he had ever made. She didn’t have time to put it on. With her Starling power, she forced her armor into the air, its pieces hovering around her. She quickly shaped them like a puzzle, into something like a shield she could carry on her back. She pulled her new blade free from the blacksmith’s body.
By the time Lark stepped into the forge, she was gone.
When Isla finally appeared in front of the Wildling stronghold, she felt knee-wobbling relief to see that it had been left alone, for now. She wondered if Lark would spare her own people.
She sank to the ground as Lynx came running toward her, green eyes bright with worry. He buried his head against hers. She gripped his fur and cried. He showed her images—flashes of waves of warriors, cutting everything down in their path. Him, looking for her on the ground, while Wraith and Grim searched from the skies.
“I’m okay,” she told him, feeling his panic as if it was her own.
She couldn’t say the same for hundreds of Nightshades.
When the last of the injured were carried inside, she went to Wren. Terra and Poppy were nearby, helping the wounded. She explained everything to them.
Lark was their ruler . . . not Isla. Lark was infinitely more powerful. She was the original creator of their world.
And Isla? Beyond breaking the curses, she hadn’t given her people much reason to be loyal to her. She just hoped they wouldn’t stand against her.
There was one thing she could offer: an escape. Though something in her grieved, she carefully handed her starstick over to Wren. “Use this to portal our people away, should you need to. Go back to the Wildling newland. Bring Lynx, if he’s not with me.”
Wren nodded. Isla taught her to use it.
Grim portaled them back to the castle steps. There, Astria was waiting. She was covered in dirt. Her arm had been badly cut and was now wrapped.
“Burn the dead,” Grim ordered. “Dig up any other grave sites and burn the bones.”
Astria looked wary. Isla understood. The outcry when the graves had been desecrated had been sharp. Warrior cemeteries were places of honor.
Still, she didn’t question Grim.
The general took off to follow his orders.
Isla watched him carefully. As the rush of the battle slowly faded away, realization settled in her bones.
When she had told him who had taken her . . . he hadn’t looked as surprised as she should have. Lark Crown was one of the three founders of Lightlark, and she was alive, here, on Nightshade.
It was at that moment that she remembered something Oro had said, back at the Centennial. He had said that Grim was the only thing standing between them and a greater darkness.
“You knew,” she said. Her chest felt hollow. “You knew Lark was alive. You knew she was buried below.”
He stood, expressionless. He didn’t deny it.
She took a step. “You both knew. You and Oro.”
They hated each other. Why would Grim share information like that with his enemy, and not her?
Grim nodded, confirming her fears.
“You . . . you both kept it from me. Why?” Something deep within her cracked. It was another betrayal. Grim looked almost afraid, as if seeing the shift inside her. It had taken so long for any trust to be rebuilt between them.
She wanted to be angry, she wanted to feel betrayed, but she also knew it would make her a hypocrite. She had kept so much from him, even now, even after letting him in.
“I told Oro at the Centennial, before the trials started, so he wouldn’t try to kill you. He knew your death wouldn’t fulfill the Centennial prophecy; it wouldn’t end your familial line. It was also a way to prevent him from trying to kill me. My line’s power trapped her. Only my power can release her. Upon my death, she would have been freed.”
Grim tried to take her hands, but she wrested them away.
He frowned. “Many of our histories have been buried, but Oro knew that Lark had been just as ruthless as Cronan. She killed thousands to form the land; she made it from their bones. Freeing her would mean the end of the world, and we both knew it.” He studied her. “That is why you couldn’t know. She’s your family. She’s part of your realm. We thought you might one day be compelled to visit her. Free her. She can only be released with my line’s power, and—”
She had access to it.
Lark had been freed anyway, somehow. If not by either of them, then by who?
Everything he said made sense. But she still burned with betrayal. Not just from Grim . . . but Oro.
He knew she’d had family. He knew her ancestor had been imprisoned deep below Nightshade, forced to power the land. Lark might be a monster, but her imprisonment was torturous. Twisted.
Power in bloodlines were shared. It meant Isla’s ability, as vast as it was now, was limited by Lark’s existence.
She wasn’t the only one.
“Cronan is alive,” she said. Lark had told her as much.
Grim stilled. “That’s impossible.”
“All of this is impossible.”
They stared at each other. Their ancient ancestors still lived. The fact that they were both this strong meant their lines were infinitely powerful.
It also meant her death wouldn’t be the end of all Nightshades. Grim’s wouldn’t be either.
She could kill him to fulfill the prophecy . . . and his people wouldn’t die. Not if Cronan still truly lived.
But she would.
The choice remained impossible. She loved both Oro and Grim. And though the prophecy had taken over her life since the oracle had made it, Lark was now their greatest threat.
They didn’t have a chance against her. They both knew it. “Lark can’t be killed. Her army is endless.”
“So what do we do?” Grim asked. The great Nightshade warrior was asking her for her plan. And she had one.
“Nothing in this world can stop her,” Isla said. “So we need to send her to another one.”
Grim’s eyes narrowed as the meaning of her words became clear. “The portal.”
She nodded. “We need to open the portal on Nightshade and send her through. Then close it behind her.”
Grim shook his head. “We don’t know how to do that.”
He was right. But she knew where she could find that information. “The prophet’s book had pages missing, containing information on how to open and close portals. If it still exists . . . it’s on Lightlark.”
Grim stiffened at the mention of the island.
“I’m going to go find it.” She took the tooth from her pocket, skyre gleaming in the sun.
“I’ll go with you.”
“No. Lark could be back any moment. You need to protect your people. You need to ensure there are people left to save.”
In the past, he would have stopped her. He would have insisted on coming anyway. He would have made the decision for her.
Now, he only gathered her in his arms, pressed his lips to the crown of her head, and said, “Come back to me, wife.” His voice broke on the word. “Please.”
She looked up at him. Nodded. She didn’t have her starstick anymore . . . but she had access to Grim’s powers. She had used his flair before, when she had saved his life. It had taken every ounce of emotion and ability she hadn’t known she possessed.
Even now it was difficult, reaching for that bridge between them, finding that elusive portaling power. Gripping it. She gritted her teeth against the effort to hold it firmly. A bead of sweat trickled down her forehead. Her skyre glowed.
Finally, she clasped the power.
And portaled to Lightlark.