She carried herself like a village elder. He didn’t want to look away, to offer her the respect she was due, but he also wanted to finish writing his question.
“Stand up,” she said, and he did. Kristoff peered over his shoulder, probably reading the unfinished letters that spelled out what if.
“How far along are you….” She looked away from him then, at Kristoff. “How far along is he in his lessons?”
“Not far,” Kristoff said. “He learns fast, though, and has already begun sensing storms and gathering power. I think.” Kristoff winced. “He is also just learning to write, so….”
“So it’s hard to tell. I understand.” Rowen’s stomach fell. “Rowen, you will come with me. I am going to sense your power while you do the exact same thing you did with Franken. I want you to sense whatever you can sense, and if you can, pull it toward you. I am certain you can do it, given your age and what I’ve heard reported of your ability so far. Try your best.” The words sounded positive, but she spoke them like a demand.
Rowen nodded, following Marin out into the sunny morning. He breathed in fresh, humid air, the scent of rain still on the wind. The sky overhead was a mix of fluffy wisps of cloud that Rowen felt certain would burn off as the morning went on toward afternoon, revealing patches of blue.
Kristoff walked next to him, and Rowen met his blue eyes. He wished he could ask him what he had tried to write down.
What if I fail?
“Very well,” Marin said. “Let us begin.”
Kristoff put his hand on Rowen’s shoulder, the touch sending a cooling lightness through his body. Then Kristoff left him alone, moving to stand next to Franken in front of the wooden house shaded by green trees that suddenly didn’t feel like Rowen’s home anymore.
Rowen took a quick breath and had to wrench his gaze from Kristoff when Marin demanded, “Look at me.” She was silhouetted against the rising sun, and Rowen blinked watering eyes.
“You will use your power, again, Rowen,” she said, and her voice was deep, sonorous, and almost hypnotic. “The same as before. Close your eyes and imagine the sea. Breathe in and out. Let your sense of the air, of the wind, tell you where to go.”
Rowen shut his eyes, trying to obey her and shut out any of his fears and doubts. He had to do this right. He couldn’t mess it up. He had done something wrong before, or something bad, and he couldn’t let it happen again. He had to use his power now and prove he could be a Storm Lord, like Kristoff.
He felt the wind on his skin, humid air laden with dew. It was strange and foreign, but he was growing used to it after having been on the island. It raised goose bumps as he thought about it, the chill unwelcome this early in the morning, especially after not having gotten any sleep.
“Send out your senses,” Marin repeated. “Think of the sea. Imagine what the sea air would feel like.”
Rowen formed an image of the ocean in his mind’s eye, and the first thing that came to mind was trying to learn to swim with Kristoff. The cold pinpricks of water on his skin, the rushing and pulling of the fast-moving water… it wasn’t how he liked to feel. It was dangerous, quick, and unsettled.
“Think of it, Rowen,” Marin said. Rowen swallowed; he must not be doing it right. “The cold breeze of the sea. The rushing wind across waves. Pounding rain, the cold chill of an oncoming storm. Think of the relief that would bring on a hot day.”
Maybe that was it. He had to be uncomfortable first, like Franken had said. He didn’t want to think of the heat spells from home, of the horrors he had seen, but he had to do it. He had to be a Storm Lord so he could fix them one day.
He imagined the heat, the sweltering pain of his hut, and the freezing chill caused by the pit seeds. His throat tightened, but he pushed through the discomfort, focusing. He had to use his power. He had to do it right this time.
“Good,” Marin said. “Now pull it toward you. Imagine the relief. Pull a storm.”
He wished he knew what he was doing more clearly. But he thought of relief—of Kristoff’s pounding storm, blowing in along hot winds. The storm… it came out of nowhere, a force he couldn’t feel. But the hot air he could, a mass of it moving up as the storm hit it.
His sense snapped away from him, toward a still form of air in the distance, air hot and motionless above a sheet of water. He called it, willing it to move, and the glassy water rippled.
That must be it. He must be doing it right. The exercise had gone from abstract feeling to reality. He latched on to that, on to the warm mass of air. He could do this. He just had to pull it toward him.
The air lurched, and his stomach flipped, like nausea after a hard run.
“Rowen….” Kristoff’s voice made him open his eyes. His mentor was staring at him, Kristoff’s face pale. The governor frowned.
“There’s no question,” Marin said, her mouth a grim line. “Rowen, you are not a Storm Lord.”
Rowen’s stomach fell, a hammer of shock freezing him in place. No. He had sensed the air. He had even called it. He could do it!
“I can see you don’t understand. You are not a Storm Lord, Rowen, because you do not summon storms. You summon heat spells. Are you trying to do this?”
Rowen took a step back. He blinked, seeing his village once again. Heat spells killed. He didn’t… he couldn’t summon heat spells.
Kristoff was staring at him but didn’t move or speak.
“Are you trying to do this?” Marin repeated, her voice harsher. “Are you trying to summon heat spells?”
No. Rowen wanted to shout, to scream, I want to be a Storm Lord. But he couldn’t. He just shook his head, hoping she would understand, that anyone would understand.
“Do you want to go back to your village?”
Shock knifed through him. This couldn’t be happening.
“Wait!” Kristoff shouted. His mentor moved toward him, a cool hand on his shoulder, and then Kristoff flinched back. His eyes widened, and his throat bobbed. “You can’t just send him home! They already tried to kill him!”
“As a sacrifice or for a good reason?” Marin said, her voice deathly calm. “He could have killed with the power he uses. There may have been a reason the heat spells there were so much more intense than we expected.”
No. Rowen blinked heat from behind his eyes. His parents. His village. Lucas. The heat spells, climbing year after year.
It couldn’t be his fault. It couldn’t be.
Kristoff’s eyes were wide and blue. Say something, Rowen willed him. But he didn’t.
The house and the island began to spin, and distantly Rowen realized his heart was pounding. His ears rushed, and he lost his balance, the world tilting.
Kristoff reached for him, his mentor’s hands firm on his shoulders. Then Kristoff yelped in pain and let him go, and only hitting the ground with a thud jolted him back to reality.
“Are you all right?” he heard as the buzzing in his ears died away. But the governor was talking to Kristoff, not him.
“I’m fine. It…. Volkes was right. He’s burning hot.”
“What do we do?” Franken said. His shadow fell over Rowen. “Is he dangerous?”
No. Rowen shook his head, but no one was looking at him. He hadn’t wanted this to happen. He hadn’t wanted any of this to happen. He didn’t want this power. He didn’t want to be here.
It would have been better if he died in his village. Then he wouldn’t have had to know.
The villagers were right to have sacrificed him. He hadn’t stolen his parents’ water.
But he had killed them.
A cool breeze blew over him from the ocean, sending goose bumps rushing over his skin. Rowen sat on the ground and waited for what the real Storm Lords would decide.
He had already made his decision.
“Come with us, Rowen,” the governor demanded. Rowen got to his feet, his legs weak and his stomach shaky. He would obey.
For now.
Chapter 29
KRISTOFF’S HANDS hurt.
He had claimed he was all right, but the skin still throbbed. He still couldn’t believe Rowen had burned him. It had been like touching one of the metal stoves used by the northerners to keep warm in winter.
How had he erred this badly? He was Kristoff Hurricane, one of the strongest Storm Lords on the island. And he hadn’t been able to figure out that Rowen called heat spells until a senior Storm Lord had noticed it.
Lightning. He had thought it was just lightning.
The walls of the Storm Building felt claustrophobic, and he turned on his heel, pacing back. “Don’t worry, Rowen,” Kristoff said. His student sat on a wooden bench against a stone wall, his gaze empty and flat in a way that made Kristoff nervous. Inside the governor’s office, the burble of voices could be heard through the door. “I’ll help you. I know you didn’t mean to call heat spells. I… I’ll argue for you, okay?”
Rowen didn’t nod, his green-eyed gaze flicking once to Kristoff and then back to the floor. His usual gorgeous green eyes were dull, like a wilting tree in late summer. Kristoff dearly wished his student could speak. There must be something he could say in his defense, but he had been subdued since the test, not even trying to communicate. Now, midmorning, Kristoff watched him while the governor, Marin, and the records keeper pored over books, trying to decide what do with him.
Kristoff feared the answer, but he would let them argue all they wanted. He would never let them kill Rowen.
“Kristoff,” the governor called. A jolt of fear went through him, but he tried his best to erase it with a smile.
“Wait right here, Rowen,” he said. “I promise, it will be okay.”
Rowen’s gaze flicked to him again, but he didn’t nod. As Kristoff entered, the records keeper left, thick books in hand. He didn’t acknowledge Rowen.
As soon as the door shut behind him, Kristoff pitched his voice low, trying to sound as commanding as he could. “No decisions will be made without my input.”
The governor snorted. “That is why we called you here. He was your student. What would you have us do with him?”
Was. Kristoff winced at the word. “He is my student,” he snapped.
“Mind your place, Storm Lord,” Lorana said, her voice dangerous. “You’ve already made plenty of mistakes.”
“My place?” Kristoff’s fist tightened. “You’ve already made plenty of decisions that supported my—”
“Enough.” Marin’s voice was soft, but Kristoff and Lorana both turned to her. “We must go over what is unquestionable before we raise more questions. Rowen is a heatcaller, not a Storm Lord. Do we all agree that is true?”
“Yes,” Lorana said.
Kristoff crossed and uncrossed his arms. It was unmistakable. Even he had felt the lurch in the air, the shoving aside of cold fronts, as Rowen had done… whatever he had done. Called heat. Controlled heat spells. The temperature on the island would rise by probably ten degrees in the next few days as the rainstorm that should have arrived wouldn’t. If Rowen hadn’t been interrupted…. Kristoff didn’t want to think about it.
“Yes,” he said through gritted teeth. “Yes, I know that’s true.” He should have seen it sooner. All the signs were there. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to see it.
But that didn’t change anything. Even if he had known what Rowen could do, he wouldn’t have left him to die.
“Very well. I will tell you what I know, and what my people have passed down, about heatcallers.” Marin looked out the window, which overlooked the ocean, before turning back. “What I know is this. Heatcallers are incredibly rare. They do not call storms but call heat the way a Storm Lord calls cold and rain. Their power is the same—powerful Storm Lords can sense them. Only the most talented, however, can pick them out from a regular Storm Lord. Their gathered power is calm, still, unlike the gathered power of a Storm Lord, which is wild and chaotic to an experienced storm senser.”
That made sense. But it didn’t make Kristoff feel any better. He had never sensed anyone’s power as anything other than waiting control. There was no difference in how anyone’s power felt. But, he supposed, he wasn’t experienced.
“Heatcallers are also unique in that their own power is reflected in their body. They are drawn to heat, and their bodies heat while they use their power.”
The skin on his hands was tender, and Kristoff opened and closed his fists. Noticing Lorana looking at him from the corner of his eye, he relaxed them. Any lingering doubt in his mind about what Rowen could do had vanished.
“Despite this, heatcallers are not immune to heat. Some say they are rare because their own power kills them young—they call a heat spell and die in it, or their body heats up and they die from the fever.” Kristoff’s blood ran cold.
“So if we do teach him and strengthen his power….” Kristoff swallowed. “His own power may kill him?”
Marin regarded him levelly, and he supposed she might be silently judging him for interrupting, but he didn’t care. “It is possible,” she said. “Heatcallers are like Storm Lords, but… wrong. Their power is mutated, in a way, and brings destruction. You know well, Kristoff, that called storms dissipate on their own. Heat does not. Each heat spell called remains, until the heatcaller perishes. The very fact that their power is so still and calm, like the heat they call, is their own undoing. They cannot fly, like Storm Lords, and cannot escape their own power.”
Kristoff’s heart thudded hard. “How has he survived, then?”
“I cannot say,” Marin said. “Though it sounds like he would not have had you not found him.”
Kristoff’s stomach turned. That was unmistakably true. He very much doubted the villagers from Rowen’s home had known what they were doing, but had they known, Rowen would have been sacrificed a long time ago.
“Do you think… do you think he’s called heat spells before I started training him?” Kristoff thought back to the power he had sensed that first day. The memory came back strong, more so because now it mattered so much.
His flight had been difficult. Maintaining a storm over land was hard, and doubly so because he had to drag the moisture and air along as he flew. The desert brush had been a blur of brown beneath him, with no sign of civilization anywhere. Were it not for the void in his perception that told him where the heat spell was displacing the trace amounts of moisture in the air, he would be hopelessly lost.
Then something had called to him. A speck in his senses, a displacement of the air, a gathering of power that promised to do something if given direction. That had been Rowen. He had felt for all the world like any other Storm Lord trainee, a tiny bundle of power that was reaching out for guidance, attempting to control the world around him.
It hadn’t been strong enough to call the heat spell Kristoff had sensed. But then again, he clearly knew nothing of heatcallers.
“There is no way to tell what power Rowen has used in the past, Kristoff,” Marin said. “He has learned very quickly, which suggests he may have used power before. But he is also very old for a trainee and may learn quickly because his power was waiting for a long time to be nurtured. I will say, though, that if their power is as deadly as it is, and his body heats the way it does, that the fact he has survived suggests he had not yet fully called heat spells before you found him.”
“So tell us, then,” Lorana said, her voice firm. “Now that he is calling heat spells. What has happened to other of these ‘heatcallers’ in the past?”
Marin shook her head. “None lived past the age of thirty. Like I said before, of the ones we knew of, one was sacrificed and thrown off her ship, and another vanished. There are more legends of them among the northern tribes—perhaps the cold there helps them to survive longer. But as soon as they are discovered, they are killed. Their powers are not studied because of the obvious danger.”
“Rowen isn’t dangerous,” Kristoff snapped. “He would never hurt anyone.”
“He won’t mean to,” Marin said. “But he will.”
“We have an entire island of Sto
rm Lords here,” Kristoff said, struggling not to raise his voice. “We can take care of whatever happens!”
“And waste our resources that would be better served saving cities?” Lorana replied. “I think not. Not to mention that it would be exposing people here to needless suffering.”
“So what,” Kristoff said. “You really expect us to… to kill him?”
Sacrifice. Just like before.
“That is the best option,” Lorana said, her voice cold. “The other is that we send him home. Back to his village, as though he had refused training. We would watch him and dispel heat spells he causes, until….” Lorana pursed her lips. “If he calls a heat spell we cannot get rid of. Then we leave him. That region is dying anyway.”
“You’re talking about sacrificing him,” Kristoff growled. “Again. Just like his village did. They’ll do it again, you know. He won’t last a day there if he goes back. They’ll kill him again. You know that!”
“Have you ever considered that perhaps that would have been for the best?” Marin said. Kristoff’s muscles tensed. “We Storm Lords do not interfere. I know that was part of your training. We control nature. Nature is cruel, and sometimes people die in our storms. Sometimes people die if we were too late to bring the storm. It is chance. It is also chance that Rowen brings heat that will kill him. Chances are, Kristoff, that his own power will kill him before long.”
“So we train him!” Kristoff shouted. “We teach every apprentice control, don’t we?”
“How?” Marin asked, her voice calm. “Training brings increased strength up to the trainee’s potential. If you strengthen his power, he will only grow worse. You will hasten his death and hasten the danger he brings.”
Kristoff grit his teeth. It seemed impossible. “We can’t kill him, and we can’t just send him to his death, now that we know….” He looked at the governor, and then at Marin, hoping he would see an answer there and knowing he wouldn’t. “He’s my student. I can’t let him die.”
The Storm Lords Page 22