Skyshade (The Lightlark Saga Book 3) (The Lightlark Saga, 3) (Volume 3)
Skyshade: TRAITOR

A Wildling had destroyed the nightbane. One of her own was working against her. It still didn’t make sense. Why would a Wildling kill one of their greatest assets? According to Wren, her people were thriving on Nightshade.

It was time for her to see it for herself.

Lynx snarled as Wraith landed behind them, so closely, she was nearly knocked off his back. Grim had insisted on accompanying her here, though he didn’t know about the traitor. When it came to anyone harming her, he seemed to operate by a kill first, ask questions later philosophy. No, she would replace the Wildling traitor herself. She ran her hand down Lynx’s neck as she dismounted, and he took off, immediately followed by an eager Wraith, as if they were in some sort of race.

A castle sat on the edge of a cove, surrounded by farmland. Its bricks were shining black, almost silver, and its towers were spiked, as if covered in crowns. A ring of water around it glimmered beneath the sun. Its door was a bridge, laying across the moat, perfectly aligned with a pathway of cobblestone and patches of grass. A small village sat nearby, abandoned for decades.

That was where Grim had taken the Wildlings. “They chose this place,” he said, from just behind her.

A castle with a town next to it. Something about it tugged at her bones.

“It was your father’s. It’s yours.”

Her father.

He had been Grim’s general, a powerful Nightshade, from a prominent family. That was all she really knew about him, besides his flair.

A question snagged in her mind. She couldn’t believe she had never asked it before. Perhaps she had been too afraid of knowing the answer. “Do I—do I have any surviving family?” The castle had been abandoned, but it was possible they lived somewhere else.

Grim nodded, and she nearly drowned in hope.

Her eyes burned. “I do?”

Her entire life, she had been taught her family was dead. The idea of that not being true, of her having someone out there . . .

He could sense her excitement, she knew that, but still, he had a strange expression on his face. A tentative one. “A cousin.”

A cousin.

Family.

She wanted to meet them. How could Grim have hidden them from her? She scoured her memories but came up short. She had never met a relative, not even in the past.

“Who is it?” she demanded.

He looked suddenly nervous. “Roles in my court go blood deep. Certain lines have served the same positions for centuries. Millenia, even.”

Isla’s smile dropped. She knew what he was saying. Who her mysterious cousin was.

Grim’s current general, Astria. The woman that looked at her as if she was a snake curled around Grim’s neck, slowly tightening.

Astria must have known they were related. She must have known and still didn’t trust her at all.

“Oh,” Isla said.

Grim portaled her to the castle’s entrance and was gone.

The inside of the palace was surprisingly welcoming, coated in a layer of black marble. Her people looked happy to see her. She might have suggested they convene all together, but no. If she was going to replace the Wildling traitor working against her, she was going to have to speak to each one of them separately.

One woman approached her immediately. Her name was Calla. She had short hair and freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were wide as she told Isla about what had happened a few days prior, during the storm.

“I was out in the field, when the ground began to shift. I could feel it . . . pulsing, almost. Then snakes crawled from the dirt. Dozens of them. As if called by the winds. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Follow the snakes. That was what Eta had said.

Perhaps it had been Calla. Maybe she was trying to blame the storm for the nightbane loss. How else would she know about the serpents?

Isla’s suspicions withered after a few hours, when she spoke to the rest of the Wildlings. A few had been with Calla the entire time. Several had seen the snakes. They were described as being half green, half black.

According to them, all Wildlings had been around the keep during the storm. The nightbane fields were across Nightshade. Without portaling, getting there would take several hours.

Unless they were all lying—unless they were all working against her—she couldn’t put the blame on anyone yet.

For hours, she sought each of her people out. The result was twofold—getting to hear their grievances and experiences thus far on Nightshade while also considering if they might have destroyed the nightbane.

Most seemed happy here. It should have pleased her, but, as time went on, it unnerved her. The prophet-follower had been clear. There was an enemy among her people.

Was her judgment so faulty, that she couldn’t spot them? Were they truly that good at hiding from her?

She had been betrayed, time and again, by people she had trusted. Perhaps she was the problem. Perhaps she should trust no one.

Everyone was a suspect. Everyone could be lying to her.

Again, she briefly considered going to the blacksmith and having him take off her bracelets. She could use Oro’s flair to see who was telling the truth . . .

No. It wasn’t worth the risk or useful, unless she planned to ask each of her people point-blank if they were the ones that destroyed the nightbane. Perhaps it would come to that, but not yet. She didn’t want her people to panic.

By the end of the day, she wasn’t any closer to identifying the traitor. It was dusk when she found Wren in the castle stables. She was tending to a tree with strange branches that curved and moved wildly.

No, not branches. When Isla got closer, she realized they were snakes.

Snakes. Isla stilled, remembering Eta’s words.

Wren simply smiled. She brushed the tree, and a serpent slid right down her knuckles, wrapping itself around her arm. It was light green, with shining black eyes. Its scales were hard and reflective, like armor. She recognized the faint patterns on its scales. It was poisonous.

Wren smoothed a finger down the snake on her arm. “I brought them here from the newland. Their venom cures sickness, when mixed with the right flowers.” She glanced at Isla and smiled. “Don’t be afraid. I trained them myself. They don’t bite Wildlings.”

Was Wren the traitor Eta warned about?

Isla shook the thought away. Besides these snakes not looking like the ones that had been spotted, Wren had never given her a reason not to trust her. If there was anyone close to her that she didn’t trust, it was her guardians. They had lied to her time and time again.

They had been her first suspects, until she learned Terra and Poppy had taken charge of maintaining the fields of nightbane. They had been healing Wildlings with it, and even Nightshades who came to them for help.

Why would they then kill the creation they had painstakingly worked on for months? It didn’t make sense. Unless there was something she was missing. A bigger purpose.

Isla lived in Grim’s castle. She needed to stay focused on replaceing the portal and changing her fate. Any chance at replaceing the traitor hinged on trusting someone who lived here, alongside her people. Someone who could keep an eye on things, in case there was another event like the nightbane.

The snakes seemed to watch her, wrapped around their branches, as she took a step forward. “I believe a Wildling destroyed the nightbane. Not the storm.”

Wren frowned. “Why would any of us do that?” Her shock seemed genuine.

“I’m not sure yet. But if anything else happens . . . if you see anything suspicious . . . tell me,” Isla said.

Wren nodded.

Isla slowly extended her arm toward the tree. A single snake slithered from the pack, down a branch toward her. She tensed, waiting for it to sink its fangs into her skin, but all it did was trail down her wrist. It coiled itself around and around like a bracelet.

“Take her for a while,” Wren said.

She did.

By the time she returned to the castle, Wraith was in his stable. Her starstick was in her room, so Lynx followed her through the halls, eyes narrowed at the snake slithering up and down her arm. She thought about the traitor. She wondered if they were operating right in front of her nose.

That was when she felt it—Grim’s power, radiating off him. It made the air feel thicker, heavier. She told Lynx to wait for her and followed the power toward the throne room. The door was open just a sliver. Hushed voices sounded just beyond it.

She stood there, listening. At first, she heard just words. Risk. Attack. Future.

Was Grim having a meeting without her? She thought about Azul’s warning, that nothing and no one, including her, would stop him from invading Lightlark.

Was he already doing it against her back, despite his promises not to?

She neared the opening, bowed her head, and listened.

A scraping voice. She vaguely recognized it as belonging to a bald officer who had sneered at her more than once.

“We are your council. If we cannot speak plainly, who can?”

There were some murmurs of approval. A few voices she couldn’t make out.

Then, the officer’s again: “There is a snake in our midst, ruler, and you are blind to it.”

Grim’s voice was as cold as the stone she was leaning against. With predatorial calm, he said, “A snake? Speak plainly, then. Tell me exactly what you mean.”

There was a frustrated sound. “The temptress in your bed is a serpent waiting for the right moment to strike. She is a traitor. Can’t you see—”

He was cut off by a gurgling choking sound, followed by the thud she knew as a person dropping to the floor.

Quiet.

Then, “Does anyone else have any doubts about my wife?”

Not one word.

She took a step back. Another. A small council had intervened to warn Grim about her. A snake, they called her. A traitor.

Isla couldn’t even be mad.

Because, depending on how the prophecy was fulfilled, it could very much be true.

Grim didn’t believe them. He trusted in her. It made her chest twist uncomfortably. They were right. She was working behind his back, lying to him about her true intentions. She had come here, knowing the prophecy, knowing there was a good chance she would kill him. As suspicion rose, her questions seemed more pressing than ever. How long did she have to make the decision? How long did she have to live?

According to the prophet-follower, there was only one way to replace out.