Gone

Isla jolts awake with a revelation: the rare Wildling healing flower is actually nightbane. When Oro asks what it means, Isla struggles to explain, then is seized by a pounding vision that pulls her through Lynx’s senses to the forest by Wren’s village. She glimpses Grim there, triggering alarm.

Acting on the vision, Isla portals with Oro to the Wildling newland. The first village is eerily silent, then a second and third are also empty. Daily life has stopped; crops are unharvested and homes abandoned. The absence confirms her fear that something—or someone—has taken everyone.

Returning to Wren’s outskirts, Isla finds the worksite where she and Enya had processed the deep-purple flowers. All the healing elixirs they had produced are missing, compounding the crisis. Lynx arrives, tense and angry, as Isla grasps the scale of the loss.

In her Wildling palace room, Isla discovers a sealed note. It disintegrates after revealing its message: Grim has brought the Wildlings to Nightshade and is waiting for her. The taunt confirms his role in the abductions and theft.

Rage and grief overwhelm Isla. Her magic ripples the stone, blasts her door from its hinges, and darkens the floor. She collapses into Oro, sobbing that Grim has taken her people. The chapter ends with Isla devastated but now forced toward Nightshade to confront Grim and rescue the Wildlings.