Chapter 77 — Oro

Oro arrives at the Skyling castle using the portaling device Isla taught him to wield and immediately asks Azul if creature attacks have reached the skies. Azul reports no breaches but notes disturbances and confirms Grim’s departure has left a tear, worsening the veil between worlds. Oro admits he cannot hold the beasts back alone and asks for help; Azul agrees to call for volunteers.

Azul then shares a message from his husband: in some interpretations, Crowntide is not an event but a person whose existence alters fate—someone destined either to end the world or save it. He suggests that if this person dies, her fate dies with her, implicitly pointing to Isla. Oro bristles, refusing the idea of sacrificing the woman he loves.

Pressing the point, Azul cites Isla’s prophecy that she is bound to kill either Oro or Grim, and asks whom she would choose with her life tied to his. Oro’s anger flares, but he recalls his happiness with Isla and resolves not to punish her for choosing Grim. Still, he struggles with the moral weight of protecting one woman versus his people and duty.

Azul adds that prophecies allow multiple outcomes: only one oracle thawed for Isla, so she may have heard only one version. He posits the prophecy could have shifted and might now be about Oro—the heart divided between love and duty. Oro remembers the silver woman’s warning that a choice is imminent.

Azul concludes that it ends with a blade through a heart—Oro’s, Grim’s, or Isla’s—leaving Oro with the burden of an approaching, world-altering decision.