Chapter 61 — Isla

Grim personally escorts Isla from her cell and clears the attendants, then demands to know why he would have married her. When Isla denies trickery, Grim’s shadows pin her to the wall as he presses for an explanation. Isla recounts her caged upbringing, the starstick forged from his power that freed her, and how mutual use became mutual choice. Grim reduces it to mere loneliness and vows he will never care for someone he deems weak, leaving her.

Afterward, knights resume escorting Isla, and Grim ignores her at meals. Cronan dominates the dinners with boasts of planets conquered and his coming invasion, while celebrations fill the castle above her cell. Isla recognizes time is running out to aid Oro and accepts Grim will not give her the feather.

Studying her captivity, Isla notes the dungeon doors respond to the knights’ and Grim’s touch, likely to their blood. Without powers or a weapon, she cannot overpower a guard, and her earlier attempt to seize a table knife failed. She resolves to steal the feather herself during the dinner window when leaders are confined elsewhere.

Thrown back into the cell, Isla turns to the weakened Lark and proposes an alliance, asking how badly Lark wants the feather—signaling a risky plan to secure it despite Grim’s rejection and the enchanted constraints.