The Storm Lords

by Ravon Silvius

  But Kristoff had to tell him. The last thing he wanted would be for Rowen to find out the same way Kristoff had, years in the future, living in a bubble of ignorance like a fool. Kristoff would be honest with Rowen. He owed him that much.

  KRISTOFF KNOCKED at the door to Rowen’s shared house that evening, the sound of his knuckles against the wood louder than he would have liked.

  He didn’t wait long before the door creaked open. “Hi!” Elise said. “Rowen, Kristoff’s back!” she called over her shoulder.

  A spike of fear went through Kristoff as Rowen came to the door. His apprentice didn’t smile when he saw him, merely cocking his head, his red hair shining in the candlelight from inside. All Kristoff wanted to do was protect him.

  “Rowen,” he said. “Come walk with me for a while. I want to… talk to you.”

  Elise frowned, then met Rowen’s eyes. “Wait!” she said. “Take these.” She disappeared, and then ran back and shoved papers and a charcoal stick into Rowen’s hands. “We’ve been working on writing,” she said to Kristoff. “He’s getting really good.”

  Kristoff forced a smile. “Good,” he said. “Come on, Rowen.”

  Rowen nodded, waving good-bye to Elise. The door clicking shut behind him sent a heavy weight settling onto Kristoff’s shoulders.

  They walked behind the house, a cool breeze sending the scent of salt and sea. The sun was low, bright beams lancing through the trees and spangling the path. Rowen stared at it when the wind picked up, sending the light dancing on the ground and leaves swirling down from the trees. As they walked on, Kristoff could hear the quiet rush of the ocean.

  “Rowen,” he said, clearing his throat. Rowen looked at him, and Kristoff could read the nervousness he saw there. He wished he knew why. There were too many possible reasons to count.

  “Rowen….” Kristoff sighed, staring up at the sky. His senses told him a storm was brewing in the distance, but it would likely pass them by, bringing nothing but warm rain. “Rowen, I’m sorry.”

  Rowen tilted his head, a small frown on his face. He still held his papers and the charcoal stick to write with, but didn’t make any move to write anything. Kristoff wondered if he really could yet.

  “I’m sorry that I told you Storm Lords got rid of heat spells before people died. I’m sorry about your village. About your parents.” Rowen immediately swiveled his head down, staring at the ground, and Kristoff’s throat tightened.

  “I swear, Rowen, I didn’t know.” No, that was a foolish excuse. Lorana had been right. He should have known, should have used his head and realized how bad things could get, how bad things were all over the world.

  He tried again. “We do our best, Rowen, but… they told me that people had died. A lot of them.” He swallowed hard. “I failed you. I failed your village.”

  He wondered how many other villages he had failed, how many times he had been too late.

  Rowen kept staring at the ground, the paper in his hand crumpled. Kristoff wished Rowen could say something, or that he could figure out what else to say. He had to say something, to fill the silence.

  “The heat spells are bad, Rowen, all over the world. That’s why we do what we do. In the southwest, they’re growing worse. They told me about the pit seeds, about how you use them to survive, but even there they aren’t growing well anymore. And other places in the world, with even more people, have heat spells too, with thousands of people suffering. Lorana, she… we have to make choices, Rowen. Part of being a Storm Lord is saving people, but… we can’t save everyone. Sometimes people have to save themselves. We have to make sacrifices.”

  Rowen jerked his head up, and Kristoff sensed something. The atmosphere shivered, his storm sense focusing. Rowen had done something, probably without even realizing it, and Kristoff didn’t know what—it still felt like lightning—but clearly he was upset enough that his magic was beginning to work.

  “Rowen, please,” Kristoff said, reaching out. “Let me help you.”

  Rowen shook his head, taking a step back as Kristoff’s fingers brushed his shoulder. He dropped the stick and papers, shaking his head again and putting up both hands, as if shoving Kristoff away. He turned and began to walk, his steps hurried.

  Kristoff’s heart sank into his feet. “Rowen, please,” he called, but Rowen didn’t stop.

  Kristoff cursed his own idiocy, and Lorana, and the heat spells. He may have just lost a student. But it hurt even more than that, more than it should.

  He just wanted Rowen to be happy. But everything he had done, and failed to do, had ruined Rowen’s life.

  Chapter 16

  THE SUN sent blazing fire across the sky as it sank into the ocean. Rowen dug his feet into the sand that mingled with the grass and bracken of the forest. He wanted to watch the sea, to look at the ocean he would never have even dreamed of before coming to the island, but all he could think about was how the setting sun reminded him of home.

  His home, which was dying. His home that wouldn’t be saved. His parents, dead and rotting, Lucas, even the people who had sacrificed him.

  He had learned enough to know what sacrifice really meant now. They had delayed saving his village, and his people had died. His parents had died. Kristoff hadn’t even mentioned his villagers saying he stole his parents’ water, because he didn’t care. Or maybe he didn’t know. But it didn’t matter, since they never could have been saved. They had to make sacrifices.

  We’re not gods, Kristoff had said when they first met. It hadn’t felt true until now. He wanted to forget his old life, to make a new life here. But it just kept coming back.

  He was no Storm Lord. He was a well-digger. And even if he became a Storm Lord, he couldn’t save everyone. He would have to make sacrifices, just like they had sacrificed him. Just like Kristoff had sacrificed the people in his village when he was too late.

  Rowen hated that word. He hated that he couldn’t speak, couldn’t shout, couldn’t scream at Kristoff or anyone else. All he could do was feel the warm tears running down his face and the tight pain in his throat, swirling and mixing with anger so hot it burned. He remembered the heat spells, all of them, the stifling, choking air that made his throat feel like the sand outside. That air didn’t move, just sitting and staying, and there was nowhere to go and nothing to do about it. Even when the rains came, the storms, the air dispersed, but it never really left. It just waited, slowly forming again and heating in the sun before descending. A part of him suddenly knew that with complete certainty.

  They would just keep coming, and his village would die when another city with more people, maybe one like this island, had to be saved first. It would be sacrificed for others, just like he had been.

  It was worse than before. Before, he had only suspected Kristoff didn’t know or that he had lied about saving lives. But he had hidden it, or it had been hidden from him, so the Storm Lords who were supposed to save people could sacrifice them instead. His people.

  Rowen wanted to go home. He was a sacrifice too. He belonged there. For a moment, he didn’t care about succeeding as a Storm Lord.

  Splashing caught his attention, and he took a few careful steps toward the water. A familiar shape emerged against the evening sky.

  Volkes paused when he saw Rowen. “Don’t tell me you waited at the shore the entire day for me,” he said with a laugh.

  Rowen shook his head sharply, then glared at Volkes, tilting his head.

  “So what’d you do all day, then?” Volkes said. Rowen wondered if Volkes was cold in the chill air after being in the water, but then again, the northerner was probably used to colder weather than this. Water ran down his body in rivulets, and Rowen couldn’t help but look. He still wore nothing but tight shorts, and his wet, drooping hair made him look less like Lucas and more like he had the night before, on top of Rowen and rubbing hard against him.

  Heat flashed through Rowen, and he looked away. He didn’t want that now, did he? After all he had learned? Anger twisted inside him,
anger at Kristoff and at himself. He wanted a new life, but all of a sudden, after all he had learned, his new life felt wrong.

  “Hey.” Volkes got closer, putting his hand on Rowen’s chin. “What’d you do all day, then, just wander around?”

  Rowen nodded, not liking the way Volkes was pushing on his chin and making it harder to move his head.

  “Whoa.” Volkes put his hand on Rowen’s face, then on his shoulders. “You’re really warm.”

  Rowen curled his upper lip and shook his head.

  “Are you sick or something?”

  Rowen shook his head again.

  Volkes’s brows drew down, and he pushed himself against Rowen, one hand going under his shirt. “You don’t seem sick I guess, just hot.” His touch teased, and Rowen allowed it for a moment, Volkes’s hands cool from the ocean.

  Then Volkes grabbed his chin again, pushing Rowen’s head up. Annoyance flashed through Rowen, mixing with the anger about everything else. He hated it when Volkes did that.

  “Whoa!” Volkes leapt back, taking both hands off Rowen. “What did you just do?”

  Rowen blinked, then tilted his head.

  “That had to be… lightning, right?” Volkes grinned. “It felt like you burned me.” He looked at his hand, then shook it as though he had touched a metal basin left out in the sun during the heat of the day. “Huh. Maybe I won’t be the only one called Lightning soon enough.”

  Rowen drew his brows down.

  “Volkes Lightning. That’s what they’ll call me when I graduate, since I can affect the air well enough to create it. It gets rid of ozone that’s part of a heat spell.” Volkes took a few steps around him. “Most talented Storm Lords get nicknames like that. It’s why they call him Kristoff Hurricane.” Volkes peered at him, careful not to touch him again. “Do you even know what you did? I’ve never done something like that, but I guess it’s because I have training.” He smirked.

  Rowen shook his head, shivering a little when a chill wind blew. Volkes didn’t even seem to notice. Just another reason he missed home.

  “What’s the matter?” Volkes said. “You seem pissed off. What, you didn’t like me ditching you this morning?”

  Rowen paused, unsure how to answer that. He shook his head, waving a hand. That wasn’t a big deal, not now.

  “So what, something else happen?” Volkes’s eyes gleamed, and he got closer again. “You’re like me, I’ll bet. You use your magic when you get pissed off. So who pissed you off? Elise?” Rowen shook his head. “Sharon?” No again. “Kristoff?”

  Rowen clenched his jaw. This was private, dammit, but he nodded anyway, anger boiling to the surface.

  “Thought so. What, you went to him for a fuck and he turned you down?”

  Rowen turned horrified eyes on Volkes and shook his head. Volkes burst out laughing.

  “Just making sure I didn’t leave you desperate this morning.” Volkes moved even closer. “Forget about Kristoff.” The name mixed with Rowen’s emotions, sending more anger through him. “Why don’t I…. Okay, whoa.” He backed off again just before touching Rowen. “You are really, really hot. And I mean that literally. Maybe calm down first? Whatever the hell Kristoff did, I’m sure it’s not that bad. Mentors always piss off their students.” His words weren’t helping. “What’s the worst he could have done?”

  Killed my people. Lied to me. Let my parents die. Anger boiled over, and he turned his face away.

  “Hey….” Volkes rolled his shoulders. “Don’t cry. Men don’t cry.” He stared at Rowen, and Rowen wished vehemently that he would just go away. He wished he could speak. Writing wasn’t enough, and he was no good at it anyway. He didn’t know what to do.

  “All right, when you get your shit together, find me again. Maybe.” Volkes snorted in derision, and soon enough Rowen was alone again, with just the dirt and sea for company.

  It didn’t matter. He had only liked Volkes because he looked like Lucas. But he wasn’t Lucas. Lucas was dead.

  He had tried so hard to put it all behind him.

  He waited in the tree line while the sun set and everything grew dark and cold. No answers came from the sky or sea, but his anger began to fade as long as he didn’t think. That’s what he had been doing, he realized. Not thinking about his past, just the future. It had worked, until it couldn’t.

  “Rowen!” He jumped. The voice was familiar, but not Volkes, and not Kristoff. Thankfully.

  Rowen wiped his face, his tears having mostly dried. The call came again, and he sighed. It wasn’t as if he could call back.

  Instead he stepped out of the trees, peering into the dark and hoping whoever it was could see his moving shadow. Branches behind him rustled, and he waved as he turned, hoping the dimness would hide his face.

  “There you are.” It was Sharon. “What are you doing out here? Volkes said you were upset.”

  Rowen shrugged. He should be used to not being able to voice his thoughts by now, but suddenly it seemed much more important. He had hidden things for so long, by necessity, and even now he felt the same walls he had built up growing back. There was no point in this. This was his life now, and what had happened in the past…. It was the past. No one could help him anyway. They hadn’t been able to help his parents or his village.

  It was up to him to help himself, and that meant continuing on. Maybe if he studied hard enough, he could help his old home.

  “Can I guess?” Sharon said. “You miss home.”

  Rowen blinked and had to nod.

  “You’re the oldest student I’ve ever seen,” Sharon said. “Do you miss someone from home?” Rowen shook his head. “A lover? Your family? No?”

  Rowen wished he could make her understand and that he hadn’t dropped the papers Elise gave him. He put up both hands and then dropped them.

  “You miss… everyone?”

  Rowen shrugged, then shook his head. It wasn’t that. It was that there would be nothing left of his home. Like Darsea.

  He lifted his head, then pointed to Sharon, and out to sea.

  She paused. “Are you asking me about my home?” He gave a slow nod, then spread his hands out, waving his fingers as if to ask for more. “About my ship?” No. “About people from my ship?” No again. She paused, thinking, and he pointed again at the ocean. “About Darsea?” He gave a firm nod.

  She crossed her arms over her chest, her gaze going out to the ocean. “I don’t know much about it,” she said. “I wish I did. But it was lost generations ago. My grandmother says that her grandmother told her stories of their home—it was an island chain, and there was a volcano on the largest island.” Rowen tilted his head, unsure what a volcano was, but she didn’t elaborate. “But that wasn’t what drove us out. The volcano was dead, but each year the air grew hotter. People started to die, and the very old and very young died first. The final heat spell never ended.”

  Rowen shook his head, opening his mouth, and then raised an arm, indicating the island.

  “The Storm Lords? I don’t know,” Sharon said. “Maybe there weren’t any then, or they didn’t know about us. Or maybe they just didn’t have enough people or were too weak. But my people left. We spent the last fifty years making a fleet of ships and then sailed away, looking for cooler air. And… that was that.” Sharon shrugged. “We found our way of life on the ocean. We’ve been living as nomads ever since.”

  Rowen bit his lip. Was that what would happen to his people? They had land to live on, and wouldn’t need to sail the ocean, but they would travel north, and then what? He thought back to the maps Elise had shown him, but it was all a blur in his mind.

  And that was assuming they left at all. There weren’t many people in his village, at least not compared to all the people here. Names and faces went through his mind, villagers who had once treated him with kindness, Alain and Erik and the doctor, Folar. He could almost smell the dusty ground of home.

  But this was home now.

  “I’ve heard that heat spells over humid area
s in the center of the planet are impossible to break,” Sharon said. “That’s where Darsea was. If you see a globe—an enormous map of the entire world—you can see where the heat spells ring the planet. You can see it in the records hall. It’s too hot there for anyone to live, and it’s growing worse, or so my mentor tells me. Did… did Kristoff tell you that?” Sharon gave him a sad smile. “Did he tell you that the world is dying?”

  Rowen sighed, then nodded. His home had once been his world.

  “Not everyone knows that,” Sharon said. “The governor tries not to discourage people, even the Storm Lords. But we—the Darseans—have known it for centuries now.”

  Rowen nodded, his body hollow and heavy all at once. If he ever was a Storm Lord, like the others, he would have to work hard to save people.

  He just wished he could have saved his village. Maybe, if he worked hard enough, he still could.

  “C’mon, Rowen,” Sharon said. “Let’s head back.”

  Chapter 17

  “WHY DIDN’T you tell me?” Kristoff asked. The sky was pink outside Talia’s home, sending beams of light like slashes across the table. “Why didn’t you tell me we couldn’t—didn’t—save everyone in a heat spell? That sometimes we came too late?”

  “I told you people can die in storms,” Talia said, holding a teacup between her hands. “Do you remember?”

  Kristoff leaned back, his teacup hot in his hands. Ben rummaged in the kitchen, evidenced by the clinking of silverware. “I do,” Kristoff said. “You told me that the rain and the wind can be deadly, despite any intention by the Storm Lord. Those who die in storms are a tragedy, but it is better that the storm happens than people die in the heat spell, because heat spells are deadlier by far.” He emphasized the last few words. “We’re supposed to save them! I thought we were!”

  “Kristoff, attend to me.” Kristoff felt an instinctive calming; Talia had used that phrase hundreds of times throughout his training, and even now it worked. “Do you feel you are responsible for the deaths of those who may die in the storms you bring?”