Contents
Chapter 4 — Isla
Overview
Isla crashes into the founders’ otherworld, seals the portal, and discovers her powers are severely suppressed by the realm’s crushing force. Lark arrives badly torn but slowly regenerating. With time running out on Isla’s life, the ashen terrain animates into chains, trapping them and escalating the peril.
Summary
Isla Crown slams through the portal into the founders’ otherworld and immediately seals it using the last of her strength and the god-bone skyre over her heart. Her father’s armor spares her from being shattered on impact. Gasping in putrid air, she takes in a breathtakingly painted sky above a barren expanse of silver-black ash.
Recovering her bearings, Isla spots Lark Crown convulsing in the ash, her body torn open by the passage. Lark’s wounds begin to knit, but more slowly than on Lightlark, leaving her chest imperfectly closed. Sensing an opening, Isla moves to strike, only to nearly collapse—drained by sealing the portal and crushed by a second gravity that smothers her abilities.
Isla reaches for her diamond at the collarbone and finds it inert; this realm blocks her power to mere threads. The stakes crash back: she must defeat Cronan, undo the deaths she caused, and save both her own dwindling life and Grim’s, bound to hers, with winter’s end only days away. The place feels like a world of ruin where her former power cannot save her.
Lark rasps, “You idiot,” as the ash itself begins to move. The ground transforms into ropes and chains that raze skin and coil around them, trapping Isla and her ancestor as the chapter ends in mounting danger.
Who Appears
- Isla CrownProtagonist; seals the portal, survives the crash in armor, finds her powers suppressed, and is ensnared by living ash while racing a life deadline.
- Lark CrownAncestress and antagonist; torn by the crossing, heals slowly, taunts Isla, and is caught as the ashen ground becomes restraining chains.