Page 64 of A Warrior's Fate

Isla, on the other hand…

She turned in her spot, laying on her side so she could face the window. With the shades drawn open enough, beams of moonlight spilled onto the floor. Isla trailed them out as much as she could to their source, to the world outside. One that held monsters and murderers and…Kai.

She brought her hand up to her face, so dark with the faint glowing backdrop behind it.

Everything given can just as easily be taken away.

She scowled, directing her gaze upwards, lingering as her fingers curled but one digit. She flipped off Fate, holding it until she felt the deity had received her message, and tucked her hand beneath her pillow. And though it may have been contradictory, she’d sent a prayer too, thanking the goddess for what could’ve been…for Kai to be safe and okay.

And then, finally, she closed her eyes and slept.

Somehow, Isla felt worse when she woke up than when she’d gone to bed; her limbs were stiff and heavy as she peeled open eyes that took too long to focus. Oranges, reds, and purple-ish blue hues greeted her through the window, a calling to the sun’s arrival on the horizon. Still, the sky held a lingering blackness to it, meaning it had to be an hour or so before dawn.

She grumbled as she stretched, wincing at the sharp pain in her arm and side. Her injury from the Hunt had clearly been aggravated somehow, and she’d place her bets on her entirely graceful descent from the heights of her hiding place amidst the branches. Adrenaline had kept it all at bay throughout the madness of the night—the movement that she had stood by firmly when it came to aiding recovery—but after being stagnant for so long as she lay curled on her mattress, her body was ready to make her pay. Taunt her for her hubris against nature’s timing.

With a quick look at the clock, Isla realized that she’d only been asleep for a few hours if she could even call it that. It wasn’t a deep sleep, just the in-and-out illusion of one. A back and forth into the murky depths of her subconscious. She had a gnawing feeling that the closest she’d ever get to sleep in these coming weeks would have been the day before yesterday—when she was unconscious.

She wavered as she rose to her feet, her knees buckling and almost sending her back to the bed. Something was…off. Again. In a way she’d never felt or experienced before, shocking as this trip had been full of foreign sensations. But this—this was truly unique. Like a fog clouded her head, thick and impossible to clear away entirely. Like pieces of her mind—of her—had been scattered, gone away, rendering her at a loss of how to retrieve them.

The reasoning for it hit her hard and fast, but she didn’t want to acknowledge it. Didn’t want to believe it. Even if it was painfully obvious.

“Forget,” she said, the word seeming to echo in her empty room. Reverberate in her mind as she moved to the bathroom to freshen up and look at herself in the mirror. As she pressed along the dark circles under her eyes. As she took in her sallow skin and slightly chapped lips.

Isla forced herself to smile.

This was a new day. The start of a new life. The life she wanted. The life she chose.

A warrior—not a queen.

On her way out, Isla caught a piece of paper on the chair—a note that read:

Meet you back here at 9.

From both the handwriting and the very small pool of people that it could’ve been, it was easy for Isla to figure out it was from Adrien. She’d been faintly aware of when he left her room last night, though, after one hour or two, she wasn’t sure. All she remembered was hearing him go in a hurry.

She looked at the clock again, tracking the hands as they sluggishly made their rounds. Nine AM meant that there was still quite a bit of time left until they put their plan into action. Until they made their last-ditch effort to get to Lukas, to glean some information about what had gone on behind the Wall. The timing just right, every diversion conducted to perfection.

One shot. They had one shot.

Because at noon, they’d be bound for Io.

But until then, Isla had some hours to kill, and so she figured, where better to go—where else to go around here—than the roof.

As Isla pushed open the heavy door and stepped onto it, she was met by the luster of metal bars and vents and chimneys in the rising beams of sunlight. The platform was surely different in the daytime. It seemed more functional now—and a lot dirtier too.

The observation drew a breathy laugh from her mouth and had the faintest smirk crossing her lips as she turned to look at the wall behind her. A structure that had almost led to an irreversible mistake.

For a moment, she let herself relive the rush, relish in the flashback to the sweet, painful tension. She’d surely never know what sleeping with Kai would entail, but if it was anything like the damn game they’d played—that push and pull, grip and release…

Any inkling of her amusement faltered when she trained her eyes to the empty space along the railing, feeling a tug, not from a bond but her heart. But before she could allow herself to fall into those nauseating depths as she had last night, that had lapped at her toes since waking like a rising tide, she forced herself to focus anew.

A glimpse down had her eyes locked on the now extinguished bonfire, reduced to a giant pile of ash surrounded by charred rock. Gone were those who’d sent prayers up to the Goddess. Those who’d received their wishes for the final hunters’ return, though likely not in the way anyone had hoped or expected.

Isla gritted her teeth, picturing Lukas floors below her. Thinking of the horrendous prison carved into the mountainside of the tallest peak in Io’s Valkeric Ranges. Home to the continent’s worst criminals, those who would’ve been thrown into the Wilds for their transgressions if rules still held as those barbaric times of a past that she wished were a bit more distant.

They were going to help him. They had to help him. Even if bringing back his memories was unsuccessful, if they could find a way to prove him not a threat, to prove him helpful.

But if they were going to try covering all of this up…

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