With enough speed, cool air could displace hot air, and that was what Kristoff would do. He closed his eyes, focusing on the dozens of tendrils of air he controlled. Thunder boomed again, but Volkes’s cloud was breaking up, spun into the centrifuge of a cold front that Kristoff had turned into a storm.
He pulled it toward himself, toward the island, and as it moved both around and inside, the clouds thickened and then opened up. Kristoff’s ears popped as the pressure changed, his skin tingling with the instinctive sensation of an oncoming storm, and then the rain hit all at once, a sheet of pressure washing away the heat spell.
He opened his eyes, still keeping his attention partially on making the tendrils of air spin. Wind whipped his hair into his face, but he could see Rowen, shielding his eyes from the lashing rain, staring out to sea.
“Can you sense it?” Kristoff called out over the sound of the pounding rain. Behind Rowen, Elise was talking to Lila, and the student gestured with one finger, circling it in the same direction Kristoff had made the air spin.
Rowen met his eyes and nodded. Pride filled Kristoff’s chest. He hoped Rowen was impressed by his strength and prowess. Rowen didn’t need Volkes. He could show Rowen what he could do.
Kristoff’s face heated at the thought, and he was glad the dark of a storm-filled dawn and the rain would hide it. He spun the air more, thunder rumbling again and the cumulonimbus above dissolving out into rain-producing stratus. He had to admit, Volkes had made his job easier—although it had been an easy job to begin with.
He pulled his awareness back from the sea and sky around the island. The rain was warm for now, but it would get cold quickly as the heat spell dispersed. He motioned to Rowen, as the other students and mentors also disappeared into buildings or under overhangs. Rain was refreshing, but even after a heat spell, Kristoff had never felt the need to stand out in it. Even Volkes was hurrying away, Katia going after him.
Rowen didn’t cower in the rain as he had from the thunder, though. He looked up at the sky again as Kristoff walked over, catching Kristoff’s eye and then pointing up.
“Nice, isn’t it?” Kristoff asked, leaning close so Rowen could hear him. Rowen smiled, but it was a half smile, and Kristoff couldn’t tell if the look in his eyes was from dealing with the rain hitting him or because he was confused or curious about something.
“Can you….” Damn. The paper in his hand was soaked, dissolving as he held it. Rowen followed his gaze and then shrugged, his smile fading.
“C’mon. My house isn’t far. We can go over what you sensed there.” Rowen nodded, following Kristoff as he headed away from the beach. The sand mushed beneath his sandals, but the rain and the flowing water on the paths washed it off as they made their way. The water flowed in shallow rivulets down small holes in the paths, and Kristoff pointed them out as they walked. “See, Rowen? That will take the water through filters and into the lake below. It will also fill up the basin by your house. There’s no need to worry.”
Rowen met his eyes but didn’t nod, and Kristoff wondered if he had been able to hear him over the pounding of the rain. They turned off the path and headed toward his house, which was close to the coast. Kristoff had always liked the open sky and a good view of the sea.
It didn’t take them long to arrive, but they were still soaked when they did. “There,” Kristoff said. He closed the door behind them, the white noise of the rain drastically lessened, and Kristoff sighed in relief. Rowen stood in the entrance, dripping water onto the floor, and he turned big eyes on Kristoff.
“Don’t worry. The rain will let up by noon, I’m sure, and then the island will be just as nice as the first day you got here.” Kristoff grinned. Dispelling a heat spell always put him in a good mood; it was always a thrill to use his power and see the good it could do. It was a point of pride for him every time to be able to look out a window and know that the rain he saw outside was his doing. Even now he could sense the circling storm he had created. “Hopefully we won’t get another heat spell for a few weeks at least.”
Rowen nodded, frowning at the ruined pad of paper in his hand. The string tying the pencil to it had cut through the dissolving pulp, and Rowen held it loose.
“Here, let me throw that away.” Kristoff took the paper, wishing he had thought ahead. “Don’t worry, I have some paper in the living room. C’mon in, don’t mind the wet. If you want, you can head into my room there”—he pointed to an open door down the hall—“and borrow some clothes and dry off. I’ll wait.” He swallowed down a rush of desire. He wanted to see Rowen, like he had before on the island, only now he could enjoy it.
But Rowen was healthy now and didn’t need medical help or any help at all, really. He nodded, moving into the bedroom and closing the door softly behind him.
Kristoff cursed his own desire. Rowen liked men. At least, he might. He had certainly slept with Volkes, assuming Volkes was telling the truth, and while he was rude, Volkes didn’t seem the type to outright lie to someone who outranked him. So Kristoff could trust that Rowen was open to the idea of sex with men. That made Kristoff’s desires, at least on some level, less of a fantasy.
No. Dammit. Kristoff took a deep breath, willing away distracting mental images. Rowen was his student. He wondered what Talia would say if he told her he was fantasizing about Rowen. Ben would feel vindicated about mentor and student relationships—he had always been protective of Talia, always cold to Kristoff, and Kristoff figured that was related to the fact that Talia had worked with Kristoff until he was seventeen and kept in contact afterward. Sure, nothing would ever happen—she had practically raised him. But all Ben saw when he started dating Talia three years ago was his girlfriend, and then wife, spending all her time with an eligible young man.
And Rowen was so close to his age. Even Franken didn’t seem to think it odd when he had mentioned how Kristoff looked at him. Then again, he had phrased it like a joke, a way to make fun of Kristoff. How would he react if Kristoff told him it wasn’t?
He couldn’t think of any examples of a mentor dating their student. But then again, Rowen had started training in adulthood, which was unprecedented.
Kristoff didn’t know who to turn for advice. The last thing he wanted was for his fitness as a mentor to be questioned and for Rowen to be assigned to someone else. The thought made him cold.
Something tapped against the wall, and Kristoff jumped. “Oh! Rowen.” He laughed. “I didn’t notice you.” Rowen wore one of Kristoff’s favorite outfits for cooler days, a plain white shirt and long blue pants. They had been woven from cloth from Pearlen that was softer than any other type, and he had paid a lot for it. The shirt and pants hugged Rowen’s frame, and Kristoff had to estimate that Rowen likely had muscle as well as height on him.
Kristoff let out a breath. Focus. “All right,” he said. “Let me change, and then you can tell—er, write about what you sensed, all right?”
Rowen nodded.
“There’s paper on the desk in the living room if you’d like to start.”
Kristoff changed slowly, giving Rowen a chance to write and giving himself a chance to calm down. Maybe there was something to that old Linland saying—a storm makes a man want nothing more than closeness.
The storm had picked up by the time he left the bedroom, and Rowen looked up once before turning back to his writing. He had taken a seat in the living room, where the rain beat against large glass windows that faced the ocean. Kristoff sat in a chair across from him, fighting back impatience.
Finally, Rowen looked up and handed him the paper. There were still spelling mistakes, but that wasn’t what worried Kristoff.
I’m sorry. I don’t think I sensed the storm correct. Lila told me that heat spells disapear when you brake them. So I tried to sense the heet spell too. It was easier than sensing your storm or Vokes storm. Maybe I am not good at that. It just felt like cold, like nothing and cold. But I cood sense the heat spell. It was like warmth or a cushon. But when your storm came it didn’
t disapear. It just went up very high. I think it will cool off up high tho. Is the sky cooler than the iland? If the heat spell is still up ther, above the storm will it cool off and that is why it disapears?
Kristoff swallowed, trying to make sense of what Rowen had written. Suddenly his desire for the man in front of him felt much less important. Rowen’s inability to speak had made their lessons one-sided, Kristoff simply trusting that Rowen understood. Now he wasn’t sure that Rowen had been sensing what he thought he had been sensing at all.
“I… so when you say you sensed the heat spell, what did you sense?” Kristoff asked carefully.
Rowen reached for the paper, and Kristoff handed it back. Rowen wrote Heat.
“But heat in reality, right? I mean, you were warm. That’s not the same thing as sensing the air from a distance.” That had to be it. Rowen just didn’t understand the mechanics of sensing anything yet.
Rowen’s eyebrows drew together, and he shook his head.
Kristoff took a breath, his gaze flicking to the window when a gust of wind rattled it. “So, you sensed a heat spell. But….” He thought back to lessons about locating heat spells, about searching for where cold fronts were locked in place, unable to push past the blocking effect of high-pressure air. “You sensed the cold air not moving?”
Rowen shook his head.
“Sorry. You sensed the cold air trying to move, trying to push it away?” He nodded, and Kristoff relaxed.
But then Rowen held up a hand and wrote, I sensed that too. But I could sense the heet. It is still there, cooling now.
“That’s impossible,” Kristoff said. Rowen blinked at him.
“That’s not what Storm Lords do,” Kristoff said. The very definition of a heat spell was hot air beyond a Storm Lord’s ability to sense directly or control. That was what made them so dangerous. “Are you one hundred percent completely sure you could sense the heat?” He couldn’t even imagine what sensing heat must feel like.
Rowen frowned, his gaze downcast. He nodded.
That couldn’t be true. Rowen must be mistaken. “Maybe you sensed Volkes’s lightning? You could mistake the sensation of static and unsettled air for heat.” Kristoff looked out the window, but the thunder and lightning had ceased, a steady squall of rain and wind of his own devising all that remained.
Rowen tilted his head and shrugged. He wrote, could unsetled air still be there?
“Above the storm, yes.” Rowen nodded, looking to Kristoff as if studying him, hoping for something. Agreement, maybe, or approval.
That must be it. He had sensed the lightning and mistaken it for heat. Volkes’s words came back to him. His body gets hot. “I’m guessing, Rowen, that you’re very sensitive to unsettled air, like on the very edges of a heat spell or during a lightning storm.” It meant he wouldn’t be as powerful as Kristoff, but then again, few people were. “That’s a good thing. You’ve made progress.” He loved seeing Rowen smile, and he let the sight chase away some of his doubts.
Chapter 24
KRISTOFF’S CLOTHES were comfortable and smelled like Kristoff, a pleasing combination of pine and soap. Rowen made sure to keep them from getting too wet as he made his way back home, keeping the umbrella contraption Kristoff had given him over his head. It was midmorning, according to Kristoff, but the clouds overhead and the dark grayness made it feel earlier. That could be because he was so tired, though. Kristoff was going to rest for a few hours, especially since they had woken up so early, and he had mentioned Rowen should too before they met up later for more lessons in weather sensing. At least Kristoff wasn’t going to make him try to learn to swim in the rain.
Part of Rowen wished Kristoff had offered to let him stay, but when he hadn’t, Rowen had stood up to leave, and Kristoff had seemed relieved when he did. It hurt a little.
But Kristoff had said he had done good work. Rowen wasn’t sure he had, but he wanted to trust Kristoff.
He had sensed the heat spell—or maybe the unsettled air around it. It didn’t feel right to Rowen, but Kristoff was the Storm Lord, not him. If Kristoff thought he could one day bring on lightning storms, Rowen was happy to learn.
His home looked unfamiliar in the gray and the rain, the tree branches bowing under the weight of the weather and obscuring the roof. When he got inside, the scent of rain and mud followed him, mingling with the last vestiges of warmer air that had holed up inside the house.
He leaned Kristoff’s umbrella against the door, frowning when droplets of water stained the wood. He hated to see water wasted, even when he knew it was foolish, and sheets of it poured outside.
“Rowen, is that you?” Elise called from the living room. Part of him wanted to do what Kristoff had suggested and catch up on the sleep he had lost since waking up at the crack of dawn, but instead he headed toward her voice. “Hi! Did you enjoy seeing Kristoff work?”
He nodded.
“Did you go and write with him about it?”
He nodded again, and she beamed. He sat down on the couch, peering at the table where someone had opened up more maps. Extra sheets of paper still lay there from the night before, and he picked them up while Elise talked. He hoped she didn’t realize that the pad of paper she had helped him make had dissolved.
“Lila went over with me what I sensed. I’m getting better at sensing different kinds of air movement. I’m apparently really sensitive to the air whenever it hits its dew point, so I’m really good at figuring out exactly what temperature the air needs to be to make it rain. Lila said sometimes that means I can specialize in calling in snow to the northern regions!”
Rowen looked up. That word again—he knew what ice was, though he had only seen it once, as a child when he had woken up on a strangely cold day in midwinter and something called frost had covered the ground. It had vanished by midmorning. Snow, though, seemed like something everyone here took for granted. He picked up his pen and wrote, wat is snow?
Elise leaned over to read, and her eyes widened. “Oh, you’ve never seen it before, have you?” She jumped up, holding up both hands. “It’s like… well, imagine really cold water, like icy rain.” Rowen looked toward the door, where even here he could hear the steady rush of the weather outside. “If the water freezes and it’s really windy, you get hail. I could imagine hail forming in this if it were colder. But with snow… it’s frozen water, but it’s soft and pretty. It falls slowly and gathers together.” Rowen had a hard time imagining soft water. “You can mush it together in snowballs and stuff. Volkes would know better—where the northern tribes live, snow covers the ground for almost half the year.”
Rowen tilted his head, pointing at one of the maps where the little N marked north. The lands there were covered in white.
“That’s right. It snows sometimes in Pearlen too—that’s how I know about it. I remember it a little bit from my childhood, and Lila’s taken me to see snow a few times. It doesn’t snow here, though. You should ask Kristoff to take you to see snow when you get further in your training. It’s cold, but it’s nice at the same time. It makes the whole world look pure, and it’s so… different.” She shrugged. “Even the air smells different, and feels different, like you have more power there. It’s a kind of clean smell and feeling.” A wistful smile came over her face.
Rowen tried to imagine it and failed. Maybe the frost and ice just covered everything? But wouldn’t it melt as soon as the sun came out? Even water evaporated if it was left out too long. Another thing he didn’t understand was why anyone would need snow.
Elise interrupted his thoughts with a laugh. “You look confused, Rowen. Here.” She stood up and went to the bookcase, her finger trailing along the spines. Finally she pulled out a large book, and Rowen took a few moments to read the cover, which said Atlas. When she flipped it open, more colorful maps skimmed past his vision, until she flipped to the back.
Rowen leaned forward. It was like the painter’s stall. A picture showed houses and buildings, drawn in the colorless gray of a pencil
sketch, and others were drawn with thick black lines. The tiny words by the first picture read Pearlen Skyline.
Elise flipped the page, and Rowen blinked. Lines of gray illustrated a small house and open field, a fence ringing off the house from a forest surrounding it. The sky had been shaded gray where clouds scudded across it, and the trees were different, like enormous versions of the tiny, spined sage plants from his home. Instead of thorns or berries, though, Rowen could make out exquisite detail, soft fluff covering the ground and the branches of the tree, and even the roof of the house. It looked like the clouds but thicker and heavier. From the pencil drawing, he could almost, almost imagine it.
“That’s what it looks like,” Elise said. “That’s the coast of Linland after a snowstorm. It melts fast there, not like the icy tundra in the north.”
Everywhere in the world had more water than his village. Even now water beat down on the roof, and Rowen could see in his mind’s eye how it would flow into the pool Kristoff had shown him, filling a water source that would let everyone survive for years. It was unfair. Why had the Storm Lords let his people die if there was so much water everywhere else? Rowen wrote carefully, its all water? Can you drink it?
Elise giggled. “I mean, if you melted it, I guess you could. Most of the snow goes into the mountains, and when it melts, it flows down the river. If Storm Lords didn’t bring snow storms to break heat spells in winter, there’d be no snowpack and the rivers would dry up in spring.”
Rowen studied the picture, the soft clouds overhead and the gray of the pencil blending with the white of the paper to show a scene it was hard for him to imagine. He thought of the Darsean painter and the scenes in his paintings. He remembered, all too clearly, the heat and dust from home, the sand that crunched underfoot and swirls of dry wind that would send it spinning into tiny whorls that would die as quickly as they formed. His father had taken sticks to the ground, poking tiny holes, and wherever the sand crumbled and skittered just a little bit less, they would try to dig. The air had felt like the air of the heat spell but less intense, all heat and light and density as the warmth pressed in all sides.
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