Contents
Chapter 10 — Isla
Overview
Isla’s duel with Lark is interrupted by void-knights whose shadow power drains both fighters. Facing defeat, Isla drags Lark through a small portal to another region of the same world. Stranded and weakened in a strange forest, Isla senses an ancient energy and sees a startling apparition of herself.
Summary
Wood slams Isla back as she channels the storm and turns Lark’s own forest into a thousand wooden daggers. Though shredded, Lark rapidly reconstitutes. Isla recalls her stolen gear, reassembling armor and seizing god-bone, Cronan’s sword, and the storm orb as portals bloom overhead.
Lightning splits the sky and rains twisted, living creatures while armored void-knights descend in beams of light. Their shadow-forged blades and presence leech Isla’s aura and power, shattering her armor and pinning her. Lark, also beset by multiple knights, begins to falter under the same draining force.
Seeing a tiny, less-energized tear among the portals, Isla gambles that it leads elsewhere within this world. As a knight closes in to strike, she thinks of Grim and Oro, breaks free, seizes Lark, fuses their armor, and hurls them both into the narrow portal just before the shadows can reclaim her.
They tumble out over rocky ground beneath Skyshade’s strange sky, Isla’s powers guttering out and the storm orb dulled. The planet’s pervasive dampening stills her magic, yet she senses an ancient, curious energy threading through the forest.
Alone with a diminished Lark nearby and the knights left behind, Isla turns at a whisper—and confronts the impossible sight of herself.
Who Appears
- IslaProtagonist; battles Lark, resists void-knights’ drain, escapes via small portal, reaches a forest and sees herself.
- LarkImmortal ancestor; regenerates from Isla’s attacks, fights knights, is hauled through the portal with Isla.
- Void-knightsMystery guardians; arrive in light, wield shadow blades, drain aura and power from Isla and Lark.
- Twisted storm-spawned creaturesMangled beings raining from portals, formed by the storm; fight and devour each other midair.