Oro
She had chosen Grim.
He almost wished it would.
He and Grim had given her a choice . . . and she had made it.
She had chosen Grim before, but it hadn’t seemed permanent until now. He always knew that the love he shared with Isla was real, but her love for Grim was real too. And apparently, it was stronger.
Oro closed his eyes, and, for the first time since Isla had disappeared in the center of that maze, he allowed himself to finally break. The tears sliding down his face were a foreign sensation. He hadn’t let himself cry since his mother’s death over half a millennium ago.
Oro had well and truly lost Isla.
A tear hit the water, and the entire island trembled. He was tied to it, irrevocably, by the curse of nexus. And as his heart and soul fractured, the very island seemed to break with him.
The white cliffs to his side began to collapse, falling into the sea in clouds of dust and ocean spray. Oro heard shouting in the distance but ignored it as a massive tidal wave crested the horizon, rushing right toward him and the island.
Power seared through Oro’s veins. He knew the danger of using emotions as fuel for abilities—he knew it was too easy to take too much, to scrape every last morsel of power until he had nothing left. But this loss had finally shattered the locks on his self-control.
The wave reached him and became steam on impact—his body had turned to flame. He soared into the air, wind wrapping around him, mixing with his fire, creating a flaming tornado.
He was king of Lightlark. The most powerful person in this world.
He had never truly allowed himself to delve into the depths of his power before. Maybe he would find something there, something that could stop this pain.
Fiery wind surged around him and the cyclone swelled, taking Oro higher. Below him, the ocean boiled in rings of crackling energy. A bolt of lightning flashed above him, the boom of thunder reverberating through him.
“Oro!” someone bellowed, over the roar of flames of sea and wind. He looked down—a figure had stepped through the fire, into the eye of the tornado.
Enya.
He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see her—he didn’t want to see anyone. He couldn’t listen to what they had to say.
Oro knew it had been foolish to continue loving Isla through everything, even after he learned she was married. But all his rules and safeguards and trepidation burnt to ash around her. She was his constellation, and he had hoped that they would find their way back to each other.
Now that she was gone . . . now that he knew she would never be with him again . . .
Only power could fill this gaping hole in his chest. For almost his entire life, he had pushed down the very thing that made him great. He had refused to give into his unprecedented strength, to lose control over himself. But now . . .
His tornado grew, energy coursing through his veins like lightning. It felt good. He lifted even higher into the sky, pulling rocks and trees into his tempest. He would destroy everything in his path. He would pour himself out until he was as empty and hollow as she had left him.
“Oro.”
Enya’s voice was a desperate gasp. He opened his eyes and saw his friend on her knees, grasping at her throat. The air in the center of the tornado was being sucked up too forcefully for her to breathe. It had already extinguished her flames.
Her eyes were wide. Pleading. He had known her for his entire life, and he had never seen her so afraid of him. Not when they were children and he had accidentally gilded an attendant. Not when he had set the sea aflame.
“Your eyes,” Enya said, and he looked up at the water that had joined his tornado. He made a sheet of ice. And in his reflection, he saw flames dance in his irises.
“You’re not—alone,” Enya croaked, and Oro blinked. It was true that he had never felt heartbreak like this.
But his heart was not only Isla’s. It belonged to his friends too.
Enya. Flashes of their friendship chiseled through his vision, chipping away at his devastation. That love stretched like roots to ground him, pushing away the anger and pain that were fueling his powers.
Enya collapsed on the ground, her red hair gleaming against the sand. Was this how she died? No. No.
He crashed down to the beach, his tempest suddenly falling around him. He knelt at Enya’s side, flipping her onto her back desperately. She looked so still—had he done it? Had he really killed her? Oro couldn’t breathe over the panic clutching his heart, at the horror of his actions, as—
Enya coughed. Oro could see the slightest rise and fall of her chest. She was alive, but barely.
He nearly wept in relief as he pulled her toward him. Only then did he remember that they had not been alone. . . .
Cinder and Maren. Zed and Calder.
He looked toward where the cliff had been and spotted them hovering on a slice of wind Zed had summoned.
Without the Skyling, they would have all fallen into the sea along with the rocks.
They would have died. Maren was holding an unconscious Cinder in her arms—the energy she had used to make the portal must have made her faint.
The Starling looked at him, eyes hard and serious. She had seen everything.
I know what it’s like to lose control, he had told her.
He had been referring to what happened centuries ago. Oro was supposed to be better than that now. But this . . .
He looked around at the destruction he had made. At the scar he had left on this island he ruled. He had nearly . . . he had nearly . . .
He couldn’t let this happen again.
Oro was ready to smother his powers, to bury the memories with Isla, to put it all in a box and hide it in the darknest corner of his mind, just as he had centuries before, when he had lost control.
But then, the tide pool rippled. Oro frowned, looking into it.
A form began to emerge, taking shape, and he almost allowed himself to hope that it was her. That she was safe. That they had managed to overpower Cronan and return.
Instead, a claw reached out from the depths of the pool. Another.
And the water shattered as a creature burst through its depths with a sky-splitting roar.