You

On the night before facing Lark, Isla rides Lynx across her quiet island. Lynx sprints with purpose through unfamiliar paths, sharing memories that reveal Isla’s parents once lived here. He stops before a forest-overtaken house that Isla had never found despite many visits.

Inside, remnants of her parents’ life remain. On a handmade table, Isla discovers a letter addressed to her in her father’s familiar handwriting. As she reads, her father recounts working for a bitter ruler seeking a sword, commissioning an amulet from a blacksmith with his blood to walk at night and trading for a portaling device. Injured after finding the sword, he accidentally portaled to the Wildling newland, where Isla’s mother saved him and warned that delivering the sword would trigger endless war. He faked his death, abandoned his old life, and secretly returned to an uncharted island he named Isla, planting her mother’s favorite flora and fauna there.

Because her mother’s curse endangered him, Isla’s father bargained away heirloom armor imbued with original power for a blood-forged necklace that let her mother love him without compulsion to kill. He reveals Isla’s mother had the flair to see the future and dreamed their child would either save or end the world. They knew Isla’s birth would kill them both and chose it anyway, certain of her worth.

The letter explains Isla will inherit her father’s flair and be spared the curses, while her mother had a blacksmith craft a vessel—a tiny vial on a bracelet—so Isla could choose whether to claim foresight. The letter ends with her father’s devotion to her mother and to Isla.

Weeping, Isla understands her parents anticipated her guilt and absolved it. She finds the bracelet beside the letter, fastens it but does not break the vial, choosing not to know the future. She mounts Lynx and returns home, resolved to face tomorrow and her fate on her own terms.