“Audra?” my dad shouts, yanking me out of my daze. “Audra!”
His calls get more frantic when I don’t respond, so I turn, searching the sky until I spot him, fighting his way through the drafts high above me.
“You have to get out of here, Audra. Take Vane and get outside the storm’s path.”
“Not without you.” I start to jump the same way Vane did. There has to be a way to reach my father. Bring him back to me.
Everything in me aches to fly up to him. But I’m not strong enough yet.
“Go, Audra!”
Never, in all my life, have I heard my father so deadly serious. It knocks the fight out of me, lulling me almost into a trance as I turn and do as he ordered. I grab Vane’s hand and drag him away, my feet moving faster with each step I take away from my father, like the winds are spurring me along.
“Keep going,” my father urges. “Don’t come back.”
Somehow we make it to the edge of the storm without being hit by any of the debris raining around us. I shove Vane through the wall of wind to the calmer ground, watching him tumble along the safe, steady earth. I know I’m supposed to follow him, but I can’t leave, can’t abandon my family. I turn to head back, but my father’s voice stops me.
“No, Audra.”
He hovers lower. Still out of reach, but close enough that I can see his tear-filled eyes.
“Go, my darling. And take care of Vane.”
He sends a powerful Easterly to yank me away. I kick and scream and battle the force with everything I have, but I can’t defeat it. It whips me out of the funnel, a few feet from where Vane lies, sobbing. Before I can rise to my feet, the storm explodes.
“Daddy!” I scream, so loud it feels like my throat rips.
The funnel unravels before my eyes, and the threads of winds scatter in every direction. I search the sky for some sign of him, strain my ears for the sound of his voice. But I know I won’t find him. I can feel him in the air all around me, and I know he’s made the sacrifice. Let the winds tear him apart so he can fight them from the inside.
I reach for the drafts, try to hold them in my grasp.
They slip through my fingers.
He’s gone.
Debris claps like thunder as it collides with the ground. It bruises me. Pummels my limbs.
I don’t run. I collapse in a sobbing heap, shaking uncontrollably.
He didn’t say goodbye.
He didn’t say he loved me.
All he said was, “Take care of Vane.”
A pair of arms wraps around me and I jump, the relief like a warm blast of sunshine as I turn to hug my father.
But it’s not him.
I stare into Vane’s watery eyes, feel his arms shaking as he strangles me in a hug, clinging to me like I’m the only thing holding him to the ground.
I want to shove him away. Pound him with my fists.
Why is he here and not my dad?
It’s his fault.
His. Fault.
But even my rage won’t sell me on the lie.
The truth slices through me, rips me apart, knocks me off my feet. I steady myself against Vane, sobbing onto his shoulder as hard as he cries onto mine. And I tell him the truth.
I tell him it’s my fault. Scream it over the winds. I have to, before the weight of what I did crushes everything inside me.
I know he hears me because he stops crying. Still, he doesn’t let go. Doesn’t pull away.
He pulls me tighter.
The winds are cold and icy, and the world has never felt so lonely and dark. But I feel Vane’s warmth through the fabric of his coat, and the longer we hold each other, the more the heat spreads through me, filling me with energy and life.
I never want to let go.
Take care of Vane. My father’s last wish.
I promise whatever’s left of my father that I will.
I can never make this right. But I’ll do everything I can to try.
CHAPTER 19
VANE
Audra isn’t in the burned-down shack, which seems . . . strange. Not as strange as the soft whimpers echoing through the air, drowning out the buzzing, chirping, crackling sounds of the grove.
“Audra?” I call, trying to follow the sound. It seems like it’s coming from above, but the sun’s too bright, and even when I squint, all I can see in the fuzzy light are palm leaves.
My whole body shudders as an awful possibility occurs to me.
They’re here. They’ve got her.
I race back to the burned-down house, scrambling to the corner where she stashed the sword. I rip it from the slit in the ground and hold it in front of me. It’s heavier than I expected, and my stomach turns as I stare at the needled edges.
Tearing flesh.
Blood spilling from jagged wounds.
Dripping down the blade.
The mental images make my hands shake so hard I almost drop the sword.
But Audra needs me.
I race through the palms, following the sound of her sobs. Broken branches scratch my legs and the sharp bark scrapes my arms as I tear deeper into the grove.
“Audra!” I scream.
The crying stops.
A loud screech replaces it, and that evil hawk of hers dives out of the sky, aiming for my head. I barely duck in time.
“I’m trying to help her, you stupid bird!” I shout, swiping the sword, even though he’s already flown out of my reach.
“Vane?”
Audra’s voice bounces off the trees in so many different directions I can’t tell where it came from. “Where the hell are you?”
“Up here.”
I squint at the treetops and there—peeking out from the leaves of the tallest one—is Audra.
Alone.
Safe.
Nothing to worry about—except the glare in her eyes as she asks, “What do you think you’re doing? Why do you have the windslicer?”
Windslicer?
Awesome name.
I move to the shade of her tree, trying to cool off. Running in the heat is not the best idea. Good thing I put on extra deodorant.
“I was . . . trying to save you,” I admit, hating how cheesy it sounds. “I thought the Stormers were here.”
“You were trying to save me?”
“Hey, I heard crying. I thought the warriors were torturing you or something.”
Sheesh—ungrateful much?
She stares at me, her expression a little proud, but mostly sorry for me. Like a parent listening to their child’s plan to capture the closet monster. “If the Stormers were here, the sky would be inky black and the winds would be picking up these trees and tossing them around like matchsticks.”
“Oh, good. Something to look forward to.”
We both glance at the sky, like we need to double-check that there’s nothing there.
Not a cloud in sight. But her hawk dives at me again and I almost drop the windslicer as I flail to cover my head. “Seriously, call off your attack bird.”
“Go to your perch, Gavin,” she commands, and instantly the stupid creature obeys, screeching one last time as he flaps toward the house.
Freaking bird.
“Step back,” she warns, moving to the edge of the leaves.
She’s not going to jump, is sh—
My thought’s cut short as she spreads her arms and steps off the branch. She whispers something I can’t understand and a hot gust of wind rushes past me. The draft wraps around her, slows her descent, and sets her gently on the ground.
“Show-off,” I grumble.
She holds out her hand for the sword and I readily hand it over. Holding it makes me queasy. She inspects the blade, probably making sure I haven’t somehow damaged it in the five minutes I held it. “Why were you looking for me?”
“Why were you hiding up in a tree, crying?” I counter.
For a second she looks thrown. Then she says, “I needed the wind to restore me,” and cuts through the gro
ve, heading back to her house.
I follow, waiting until she’s put the deadly weapon away and turned to face me before I press for an answer that isn’t a total load of crap. “Okay, that explains why you were in the tree. What about the crying?”
I stare her down, daring her to deny it.
“That’s none of your business.”
She tries to move past me but I block her path.
“You can trust me, you know,” I tell her, my voice a little heavier on the emotion than I mean it to be. “I know you’re used to doing everything on your own. But we’re in this together now.”
She doesn’t say anything. Just stares at the ground, like the ants scurrying across the dirt are the most fascinating things in the world.
I move closer and take her hands—thrilling to the strange zings that shoot through me the second we touch. “Let me help you.”
The air feels charged between us as she considers my offer, and for a second it looks like she might take me up on it. Then she shakes her head and slips her hands out of my grip. “I just had a bad dream. That’s all.”
“About what?”
She turns away. “About the day my father died.”
Her voice is barely a whisper, but the words hit me like a stone.
Her father died saving me.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell her, hoping she knows how much I mean it.
She turns back, and when our eyes meet, I see a slight shift. Like a tiny piece of her iron guard just cracked. “It wasn’t your fault.”
I shrug, wondering if that’s really true. “Either way, I’m still sorry it happened.”
“Me too.”
She leans against the wall, into the tiny patch of shade it creates. From her pained expression I can tell she’s reliving every moment of the storm in perfect detail.
I want to crawl inside her head, watch the replay—even if it’ll hurt.
“What was it like?” I whisper.
“The storm?”
“Yeah. How did it all . . . go down?” I can’t think of a gentler way of saying it.
She stares at me like I’ve just massacred half a dozen kittens. “You want me to tell you the gruesome details of your parents’ murders?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” I swipe my hands through my hair, trying to find the words to explain it. “For the last ten years of my life I’ve had hundreds of people ask me what happened—and do you know how they look at me when I say ‘I don’t know’? Like I’m brain damaged. ’Cause wouldn’t I have to be, to not remember the single most defining moment of my life?”
“You’re lucky you don’t remember.”
“Lucky?”
If I have to hear that one more time . . .
“So I’m lucky your mom stole my memories? Erased the first seven years of my life?”
“In some ways, yes.”
She doesn’t get it—nobody ever has.
“All I’m asking is for you to help me fill in the blanks. If I can’t get my memories back, you can at least share yours.”
I lose track of how many seconds pass in silence. Her voice is cold when she says, “My memories are my own.”
She stalks over to the cracked window and strokes her demented hawk. The one place she knows I won’t go near her. Not that I want to, at that moment.
I know her memories are painful, but with all I’ve been through she could throw me a freaking bone.
Everything goes back to that day of the storm.
I need to know what happened.
CHAPTER 20
AUDRA
It was only a dream, I tell myself. Only a dream.
But I know it’s more than that.
It’s a memory.
The memory. The one I can’t let Vane recover.
Where I told him I killed his family.
It was a foolish, impulsive decision, and the only reason he didn’t unleash any of his rage was because he was too shocked by what happened. I’m lucky my mother had to erase his memories, so I never had to live with the consequences of my confession.
I won’t make the same mistake again.
I won’t tell him. No matter how much he pushes.
My fingers curl into fists and I squeeze, trying to stop the tingling I still feel in my palms from when Vane took my hands.
I finally know what the feeling means.
It’s the same feeling I had when we clung to each other in the rubble of the storm. I forgot that detail, but I remember now—the way the warmth passed between us, radiating through my body.
Guilt.
That’s the only thing I felt as I leaned on the boy whose life I’d ruined. Let him support me. Deluded myself into believing he could forgive me for what I’d done.
White-hot, burning, stinging guilt.
My body’s way of punishing me for my crime.
“So,” Vane says, reminding me I’m not alone. “What are we going to do now?”
I’m honestly not sure. I’d always planned to make him master each language on its own, hoping his increased familiarity with the wind would trigger his Westerly breakthrough.
Now we have eight days—assuming my mother delivers on her promise. Less than eight days, since today is mostly over. We don’t have time for him to master anything.
The smartest tactic would be to trigger his Northerly and Southerly breakthroughs now, and train him in the power of three. Even the most rudimentary knowledge of combined drafts will be more powerful in a wind battle than competency with only one.
But can he really handle three breakthroughs in less than a day?
My mind was nearly overwhelmed when I chose to have my Gale trainer trigger two at once—and I’d been speaking the Easterly tongue for almost my entire life.
Vane’s mind is already taxed with all he’s learned and felt since last night. To add the strain of two more breakthroughs would be a tremendous temptation on his senses—one even experienced sylphs would find hard to resist.
“Uh, you want to clue me in to what you’re thinking about?” Vane asks. “ ’Cause standing in a date grove in the hundred-and-twenty-degree heat getting attacked by flies isn’t really what I had in mind for the rest of the evening.”
I stall for a long breath, forcing myself to admit this is our only option. “The best way to train you is to force your mind to have two more breakthroughs. That’s what we call it when the wind shoves its way into your consciousness and makes a connection, so you can understand its language. I triggered your Easterly breakthrough last night, when I joined the wind and entered your mind. That’s why you could see me in my wind form—and why you can understand the Easterly tongue now.”
“So . . . pretending any of that makes sense—which, by the way, it totally doesn’t,” Vane says, jumping in, “one question: Why do you say that like you’re telling me we need to chop off both my arms, make them into a stew, and feed them to me for dinner?”
I sigh. “Because triggering three breakthroughs so close together is going to be very . . . unpleasant.”
“Unpleasant?”
“Dangerous.”
“Okay, I’m not a fan of that word.”
“If there were any other way—”
“There is. You could call for backup, like you promised last night. What happened to that plan? I liked that plan much better.”
“I did ask for backup.” My eyes drop to my feet. “My request was denied.”
“Denied?”
“Yes.” His tendency to repeat everything as a question will definitely push me over the edge by the end of this.
“But I thought I was the last Westerly. Future king. All that jazz. Doesn’t that make protecting me kind of a high priority?”
“It does. They’re stalling the Stormers as long as they can. And they know I’m one of the best guardians in the Gales.”
“Yeah—and you said last night you’re too weak to fight them on your own—even with my help.”
“Not . . . necessarily.
There’s something I can do that will definitely defeat the Stormers.”
“Uh—if it will definitely defeat them, why don’t we just do that?”
“We don’t ‘just do that,’ because it’s the ultimate sacrifice.”
The words slip out before I can stop them.
I feel him watching me, but I refuse to look at him—refuse to face whatever emotions he has written across his face. I don’t know what I want him to feel.
I don’t know how I feel.
“So if I’m understanding this right,” he says after a minute, “these Gales you worship so much—they’ve sent you on a death mission instead of providing reinforcements?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Really. Then what is it like, Audra? ’Cause it seems pretty clear to me. And it’s wrong. They can’t make you—expect you . . .”
His voice trails off, and I can’t help stealing a glimpse of his face.
My heart skips when I see the look in his ice-blue eyes. It’s been so long since anyone looked at me that way, I almost don’t recognize the sentiment.
He cares.
Vane Weston cares about me.
I blink the tears away before they can form.
It doesn’t change anything. “I’ve sworn an oath to protect you with my life, and I intend to keep it. No matter what.”
It’s a simple statement, but the effect it has on Vane is profound.
He steps closer. Close enough that I feel his warmth in the air. Closer than I should let him stand. “It’s not going to come to that,” he says, his voice more serious than I’ve ever heard it. “Trigger the breakthroughs. Whatever it takes.”
I swallow to find my voice. “You understand that the process is going to be very difficult.”
“Yes.”
“Painful, even.”
“I’ll . . . deal with it.”
Who is this boy and what did he do with Vane?
“You’re sure?”
He takes my hands, gently locking our fingers together. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Audra.”
I look away, battling back the explosion of emotions erupting inside me.
My palms tingle so hard from his touch, they practically throb. My burning, scorching guilt, punishing me for my newest crime.
I deserve it. I’m letting Vane risk everything to save me—and he has no idea I’m the one who destroyed his life.
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