Chapter 68 — Isla

Isla is summoned to Cronan’s galaxy room expecting torture, but finds a small tea table and a veneer of civility. Cronan asks if she will join him; Isla refuses, stalling for time. During probing questions, Isla admits she killed Jessel to take her power. Cronan frames them as alike—both takers of power—and uses a shadow to pluck Isla’s memories, reinforcing his claim that she is a “queen of darkness.”

Isla questions Cronan about nexus. He confirms he tied rulers to their subjects to control many through one, and says Horus’s line bore the original nexus curse he repurposed. Cronan then asks about a “silver pool.” When Isla masks her reaction, he forces into her mind, clawing for it. Isla constructs a false backwall; despite excruciating pain, he finds nothing and ends the interrogation in fury.

Dragged away by knights, Isla taunts them and is slammed against stone, bleeding and half‑conscious. Grim arrives, defies the knights, and turns their shademade armor—and them—to ash. He carries Isla, steadying her despite his coldness, and portals her to his room.

There, Grim throws her supplies but withholds help until Isla tries to stitch her own hands. Impatient, he kneels and finishes the meticulous work himself. As he tends her, Isla, concussed and unguarded, recounts patterns from their past cycles: enemies turned allies, wounds and healing, being each other’s curse and cure. Their attraction surges; they draw close, nearly kissing.

Before anything more can happen, Isla is abruptly returned to her cell—healed but blood‑stained—leaving their alliance and loyalties unresolved while Cronan’s fixation on the hidden silver pool and control through nexus raises the stakes.