Crowntide by Alex Aster - 5

“She needs me,” Oro said. Isla had only been gone hours, but he felt her absence like a gap in his soul. It would be so easy to allow himself to go hollow, for the embers of himself to extinguish beneath this grief, but instead, he had to ignite. For her, he had to find his strength even within this panic.

“The island needs you,” Enya said.

Oro and his friends were back in their favorite floor of the Mainland castle. Grim had portaled them here, at Oro’s request, while he went to calm Lynx and his dragon. Both creatures had become inconsolable in Isla’s absence.

Enya was right. Lark’s turmoil had left the island in pieces. Most of his people were gone, portaled to the newlands, for their own safety. Many who had remained had already been turned into undead soldiers by Lark.

His duty was to his people and this island. He knew that.

And yet.

“I need to do this,” Oro said. “I need her.” He didn’t miss how his friends glanced at each other. He also knew they wouldn’t keep their thoughts to themselves.

“And what if this world is better off without her?” Zed finally said. At that, fire flared in Oro’s hands. Zed studied the flames and kept speaking. “Try to take your heart out of it, Oro. Isla Crown is now the most powerful person in our histories. Possibly, in the entire universe. Do we really want her back here?”

“Yes,” he said, without missing a beat.

Zed continued as if he hadn’t said anything at all. “Maybe . . . this was the best thing she could have done for everyone. She rid us of Lark. She sacrificed herself to do so. Maybe . . .” Oro’s jaw clenched as he predicted his next words. “Maybe she doesn’t want to be found.”

He’d had that thought before, right after he and Grim had beaten each other to bloody pulps in the maze. Isla knew the danger of her powers. She knew the pain and havoc those abilities had already brought unto this world. She knew the prophecy and that it meant killing either him or Grim . . .

Maybe Zed was right. Maybe she was trying to outrun the prophecy. Make it so she wasn’t even in the same world as them. Maybe she thought it would be enough to change her fate.

But Oro knew, deep in his bones, that Zed was wrong. This world needed Isla. She had endless wonder. Endless hope. She always saw light where most would see darkness. It was why Oro had fallen in love with her. She was his reminder that this world could be better. She was his light in dark places. She was his eternal summer.

And this world would need her light and her abilities to rebuild. She was a worldmaker, just like Lark. She could restore the island to what it once was.

“We’re better off with her here. We need that power,” Oro said. He had to convince his friends that this was true. He couldn’t do this without their help.

Calder sighed. Everyone turned to face the Moonling, the wood of his seat sagging beneath the weight of his towering form. “She is the most powerful person to come from this world. She is wearing a necklace with a diamond made of pure power. We need her back.”

Oro sagged in relief, before Enya said, “And I bet there are those in that world who want that power for themselves. Other worlds too, maybe.”

Including Cronan.

There it was. His worst fear. That Isla would be in trouble, and Oro would be stuck worlds away. Terror crept through his blood like ice. The necklace she wore was bound by her marriage oath to Grim and could only be released with her death. What if Cronan found her? What if he wanted that diamond? What if he—

The thought had him gripping the sides of his chair until the wood broke off.

He stood. “I’m getting her back,” Oro swore, circling the room. “Not just because I love her.” He caught a flash of pity in Enya’s eyes. “But because this world is better with her in it.”

“And how far will you go?” Enya asked.

Oro remembered what Grim said. That he would tear apart worlds if he had to. Oro knew deep in his soul that he would do the same. As a rule, he tried not to lie. He wouldn’t start now. “To the ends of the universe,” he said.

That was when Enya finally looked afraid.

His oldest friend opened her mouth—but before she could say a single word, Grim appeared in a torrent of darkness. His shadows shredded the ground, circling impatiently, reflecting his storm-like mood. There was a long claw mark along his side, the fabric of his cape torn.

Clearly, Lynx was angry. Oro couldn’t blame him.

“Well?” Grim demanded, completely ignoring Oro’s friends. “Any thoughts?” When no one immediately responded, he said, “She was already close to death when she left. We have just days to get to her.”

Panic bled through his chest. Oro didn’t know how they were going to create a portal. Or how they were going to amplify Grim’s powers. But the more he thought about Isla’s plan to take Lark into the otherworld, the more he became convinced that she would have had help from someone who wanted her to succeed.

“We need to talk to Cleo,” Oro said.

The Moonling, it turned out, wasn’t hard to find. In fact, she was in the captain’s quarters of her white oak ship as if she was waiting for them. When they portaled inside early the next morning, she didn’t even seem shocked.

She looked between Oro and Grim with the faint air of interest. “Both loved her, and both lost her, is that it?”

Grim’s shadows sharpened at her words. Oro stepped toward her, anger racing through his veins, hot and pulsing. “Yes, and thanks to you, I assume.” His gaze traveled to her throat. The Moonling wasn’t wearing her necklace. She had worn it all throughout the Centennial, and afterward. Isla had told him it had to do with the child she had lost.

Cleo didn’t even attempt to deny it. She simply lifted a shoulder. “She offered me a chance to get my son back. I took it.”

Oro mulled over her words. If the Moonling wanted to see her son again, that meant she had a vested interest in not only helping Isla make it to the otherworld . . . but also helping her return —with Cleo’s son, brought back from the dead.

Though he had never liked Cleo, partially due to what had happened the first time they had met, empathy eroded part of his fury. He looked at her now and saw that she wasn’t cold and heartless at all. She was a mother who would do anything to hold her son again. Just like he and Grim would do anything to save Isla.

“Then it seems our interests are aligned,” Oro said.

Now that he was in front of the Moonling, he remembered a conversation he’d had with her many months prior.

“You told me during the Centennial that the oracle gave you alone an additional prophecy. She said everything would change, five hundred years after the curses were spun.”

Cleo nodded simply. A wave crashed against the side of the boat, rocking them to the side, sea-foam melting down the cabin’s windows. “She did.”

Grim took a step forward. He had been quiet up until now—shockingly—but it seemed his patience had worn thin. His voice was scraped from the night itself as he said, “Tell us what else she said.” Shadows filled the cabin, smearing most of the sunlight away, and pointing into a dozen razor-sharp blades, all aimed at Cleo.

She barely spared them a glance, instead gazing at Oro and Grim in disdain. Oro was momentarily taken back in time to when she was his merciless Moonling instructor. Always looking at him like he was inadequate. She had almost killed him during his first night of training.

“If you think these shadows scare me,” she said to Grim, “then you are laughably wrong. I have faced the worst pain imaginable. Nothing scares me.” She bared her teeth at him. “I want my son back. That’s the only reason I helped her, and why I’m not throwing you both off my ship.”

Grim’s expression said that he would like to see her try, but luckily, Cleo kept speaking.

“The oracle said half a millennia after the curses, everything would change. This world would sit on the edge between complete doom and prosperity. She said someone born of life and death would decide the fate of this world. That this person would be marked by halves. Half curse, half cure. Half day, half darkness. This person would need to choose one side—without losing themselves in the process.”

He swallowed. This described Isla perfectly, and he was struck by how painful that would be . . . to live a life of halves. To be split.

He hated that she had been put in this impossible position, with an impossible choice. It had all been fated long before she had even been born. He had never wanted to be king, never wanted to bear so much responsibility on his shoulders . . .

But being king didn’t compare to the weight she carried—the weight of this world.

“There was something else,” Cleo said, almost reluctantly. “The oracle spoke of a war between worlds.”

“Worlds?” Grim asked.

The Moonling nodded. “A war that would decide the fate of the entire universe.”

Dread coiled through Oro’s gut. Their world had been through enough, with the curses, then the war between Lightlark and Nightbane, then Lark. He thought back to before the battle, when huge stretches of land on Nightshade had been reduced to ruin. How Lark had made an army of the dead. How hundreds had already been lost.

They couldn’t survive another conflict among themselves . . . let alone one between worlds .

“It has a name, this war,” Cleo said, breaking the uneasy silence that had settled over the room.

“What is it?” Grim demanded.

“Crowntide.”

He and Grim looked at each other. For a moment, Oro could see them as they were—enemies who would have to align not only to find the women they both loved . . . but to protect their world from destruction.

Cleo continued, “I always knew a portal would be opened someday. I never lost hope that there was a chance to get him back . . . I just didn’t know which side would serve me best.”

Oro ground his teeth. Cleo was a traitor. But he tasted the sweet honey of the truth within her every word. He didn’t doubt that she was motivated to tell them everything she knew. “If war is coming,” Oro said, “we need Isla here. On our side. How do we reach her in the otherworld? Do you know anything? Anything that could amplify his portaling flair?” He motioned toward the Nightshade. His shadows were still sharpened into points.

Cleo leaned against her desk, her white dress pooling around her feet. She searched Oro’s face before finally saying, “Your father was searching for a power his entire rule.”

A fold formed between Oro’s brows as he remembered how his father had sent countless emissaries and warriors out during his reign, clearly looking for something—for what, he wasn’t sure. He always assumed his father was trying to discover more lands. Though his father was a strong king, Oro never agreed with his relentless pursuit of more , his greed for what lay beyond the borders of the island.

Begrudgingly, he realized his father and Grim’s perhaps weren’t that different, in the end. Both always wanting more, and willing to sacrifice members of their realms to get it.

Are you still pretending we’re so different? Grim had asked him, centuries before. Oro brushed away the memory.

“How do you know that?” Oro asked. His father’s actions were kept secret to avoid judgment from his people. Sending warriors away from their own shores would not have been a popular decision, especially when the war began with Nightshade.

“My sister,” Cleo said. Of course. Her sister had been ruler of Moonling long before she was. “Your father enlisted her help, since his search involved the seas.”

“What was he trying to find?” Oro demanded, a seed of hope sprouting in his heart. Maybe it was just what they needed to get to Isla.

“Not what,” Cleo said. “Who.”