She slashes it a few times, and doesn’t put it away.
I decide to keep my wind spike as well. It can’t hurt to have a solid weapon handy.
Arella points to the pipeline. “I’m sure Raiden can see that—if he hasn’t picked up your traces already.”
“That’s kind of the point,” I say. “Can you make sure he knows where we’re going?”
Arella nods. “As soon as we arrive, I’ll send him a very special invitation.”
“I’m sure you will,” Audra mutters, slashing her windslicer again. “That’s what you do best.”
I want to reach for her hand, but that would probably be a bad idea—especially now that she’s armed.
“I’ll go first,” I tell everyone. “And if any of you decide you’d rather not be part of this, I won’t blame you. This is my fight—”
“It’s our fight,” Solana corrects. “Raiden killed my family.”
“And my husband,” Arella adds.
“And took about twenty pounds of my flesh,” Aston reminds me.
“And Westerly is my language too,” Audra adds—finally meeting my eyes. “The winds chose to protect me. I’ll do the same for them.”
I guess there’s nothing else to say.
Silently, though, I beg the sky to keep them safe.
Please don’t let this be another mistake.
I repeat the plea twice more.
Then I step into the pipeline and let the winds blast me away.
CHAPTER 40
AUDRA
The last time I stood among these rolling hills, my father died.
I can feel him in every rustle in the air.
In the stirring leaves in the scattered trees.
And yet he’s never felt so far away.
I turn my face to the sky and search for my favorite Easterly. Somehow it always made me feel like he was still watching over me.
I haven’t called for the draft since it convinced me to break my bond—and not because I regret the decision.
It’s just hard to crave the thing that brought me such pain.
And yet . . . I still crave Vane.
Thinking his name makes my insides wither.
Arrogant as it may sound, I never considered he might reject me.
He turned his head away, like the very idea of kissing me was disgusting.
Some small, rational part of me remembers the regret and worry I saw in his eyes as he did it, and knows there were likely factors behind the decision that I’m not considering.
But the crushed, wounded parts can’t stop watching him with Solana.
They pace across the field, her at his side, hanging on his every word. I’m sure they’re discussing strategy, but . . .
She’s still wearing their link.
And they’ve been traveling together.
And she’s so soft and beguiling.
And the only word I caught of his mumbled excuse was Solana.
And . . .
I’m being a fool. Even if my worries are founded, this is the absolute last thing I should be thinking about before a battle.
I close my eyes, trying to imagine my former walls rising up inside me, sealing off any emotions.
I need to be cold.
Still.
Numb.
“I can feel the Gales approaching,” my mother says beside me, making my insides tangle. “They should land in a few minutes.”
That’s faster than I was expecting.
I triggered the emergency call less than an hour ago.
They must be speeding their flight with the power of pain.
My mouth tastes sour at the thought.
“What about Raiden?” I ask.
“He knows how to hide from my senses. But I can feel enough turbulence to tell he’s on his way. I can’t guess his precise trajectory, but I suspect we have a bit longer. He’ll wait for us to take our places and he has the air prepared. Then he’ll reveal himself.”
“Thank you for the report.”
I assume she wanders away. But after several seconds she tells me, “You should be preparing with the others.”
“I am preparing.”
“No, you’re mooning over a boy.”
My grip tightens on my windslicer, but I keep my eyes closed, refusing to let her bait me.
She’s like a mosquito—if you can’t swat her, the only option is to let her sate her taste for blood and flit away.
“In case you’re worried,” she whispers, “I’m not angry at you for hurting me.”
“I wasn’t worried.”
I hear her sigh. “So this is how it is now? We can’t even talk to each other?”
“When have we ever talked?”
All I remember are the years she let me carry the blame for my father’s death—years I sweated under the desert sun, living in a crumbling shack because I wasn’t welcome in her home.
She lets out a second sigh. “I never realized being a mother would be this difficult.”
“Yes, it must be awful for you having to think about someone besides yourself. And now you sit there, expecting sympathy—”
“I don’t expect sympathy,” she interrupts. “All I hope for is understanding. I know I haven’t been a perfect mother—”
I have to laugh at that.
“—but that doesn’t mean some part of me doesn’t wish that I had been,” she finishes. “I did try at times, though I’m well aware of my failings. Is it so wrong to admit I wasn’t prepared?”
“Yes,” Vane says, and every nerve in my body tingles to life.
I can tell he’s standing over me, but when I force myself to look up, all I can see is a blinding halo of blond waves, standing close by his shadow.
“I’m not trying to defend myself,” my mother says. “I’m trying to apologize.”
“Well, you suck at it,” Vane tells her.
I feel my lips smile. But it fades when I force myself to turn to my mother. Spots of brown freckle her face, and I realize they’re dried blood.
I try to feel guilty—but all I feel is tired.
“Nothing you say will ever change the fact that Gus is dead because of the trap you set for us.” I dust the grass off my legs and stand to walk away.
“How about an explanation then?” my mother calls after me.
I can’t imagine any explanation could possibly make me understand.
But I stop walking.
“Make it quick,” Vane tells her. “We’ve got armies coming in from every direction. And I’m not sure if any of them are actually on our side. The Gales weren’t exactly happy with us when we left.”
My mother nods and stretches her uninjured arm, letting the breeze send goose bumps over her skin. Long seconds pass before she whispers. “I was trying to protect your father—or whatever little is left of him. Raiden’s Stormer crushed his form and stole his final breaths. But his songs live on. Surely you’ve noticed. They visit you far more than they’ve ever come to see me.”
A cold chill washes over me. “The Easterly?”
My mother nods, turning her eyes to the sky, where a flock of birds sails among the clouds. “I don’t know how to explain it. But I can feel that it’s him—some tiny glimmer of his former essence. And Raiden threatened to destroy it. With one snarled command he could turn the last whisper of your father into one of his mindless slaves. I couldn’t bear to even imagine it. So I agreed to call you over. I knew you were strong and could fight him. And I half expected to be ignored. Hoped for it, honestly.”
Vane shifts his weight, probably remembering that he was the one who convinced me to go.
But Gus was behind the idea as well.
“What do you expect me to say to that?” I ask. “That all is suddenly forgiven?”
“No,” my mother says. “But I hope you can at least learn from it. Raiden is the master of impossible choices. And before this is over, I have no doubt that you’ll be forced to make one. That’s always his strategy, so that even
his losses can be called victories.”
I think of what happened with Gus and the cost of my escape.
It wasn’t truly a conscious choice that time, but I still paid the price for it.
It’s always more than a battle with Raiden.
It’s a game of wits.
“So what are his weaknesses?” I ask her. “You?”
Her smile is sad. “Even my vanity won’t allow me to believe he still cares for me.”
“But he did once, right?” Vane presses. “That’s what Audra meant about you being his queen?”
“Yes. Though I hardly knew he had such grand aspirations. When Raiden and I were together, he was simply a charming guardian rising through the ranks of the Gales, and I was the notorious beauty flirting my way through life, trying to decide my best option. There was something magnetic about him, and for a brief time I thought . . . maybe?”
“So why’d you reject him?” Solana asks. “Did you realize he had a darker side?”
“I’d love to claim such wisdom and foresight. But my motives were much more selfish.”
Vane snorts. “Big surprise there.”
“What does that mean?” I ask her.
“It means . . . I realized that Raiden needed me as much as I needed him. He was broken in ways—and don’t ask me for specifics. He never spoke about it, and I wasn’t interested in asking. I wanted someone to shelter me. Someone to help me shoulder my burdens. Not someone I had to fix. So I stayed with him until I found a better offer, and left him for your father. I knew I’d chosen the better husband, but I didn’t realize the mess I’d avoided until a few years later.”
I can’t decide how to feel about her story, except to drown in the irony that my mother’s fickle selfishness led her down the safer path.
“And you really have no idea what issues he was dealing with?” Vane asks. “Not even any guesses?”
My mother studies her hands. “Like I said, I wasn’t interested in knowing—though I did suspect it had something to do with his family. He told me his parents were both dead, and he never seemed sad about it—except one time, when he lost his whistlepipe and panicked—”
“Whistlepipe?” Vane interrupts.
“It’s a child’s instrument. Raiden always wore it from a chain around his neck. I assumed his parents gave it to him—”
“Do you mean this?” Vane asks, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a small, silver instrument strung among several feathered hair ornaments.
My mother’s eyes widen. “Where did you get that?”
“It was hanging above Raiden’s bed in Brezengarde. I took it mostly to piss him off, so he’d know I was in his room, messing with his stuff. But you’re saying it’s important?”
“Incredibly so. He never told me why, though. The most he ever said was, It helps him to remember. And like I told you, I wasn’t the type to ask questions.”
Vane’s lips twist into a cold smile. “I guess I know what to do with it now. I’ll crush it right in front of him.”
“I wonder if Os knows more about its significance,” I say, mostly to myself. “He and Raiden were close during their time in the Gales.”
“Well, you’ll be able to ask him”—my mother closes her eyes—“right about . . . now.”
The word has barely left her lips when dozens of Gales drop out of the sky, forming a circle around us, their windslicers raised for attack.
CHAPTER 41
VANE
My army doesn’t look happy to see me.
I guess I can’t totally blame them, given the fact that I kinda ran off and abandoned everybody.
Still, you’d think they’d give me at least some credit for getting Audra back and making it out of Raiden’s fortress alive.
At least there are more guardians than I was expecting. It looks like maybe fifty—and they’re all strong and healthy and loaded up with weapons.
It’d just be better if those weapons weren’t . . . y’know . . . pointed at my head.
“Thanks for coming,” I say, giving them my best no-need-to-stab-me smile.
Os ignores it and decides to kick off the convo with the worst possible question. “Where’s Gus?”
I clear my throat. “He . . . um . . .”
God—I can’t seem to say it.
These are Gus’s friends. They trained with him and fought with him and knew him way longer than I did.
Os guesses the meaning of my silence and raises his eyes to the sky.
When the rest of the Gales copy him, I figure they’re giving Gus a moment of silence. Then I realize they’re actually listening for his echo.
I do the same, surprised when it works. I’ve never heard one before—and it’s not how I’ve pictured it. I always thought it would be the last remnants of the person’s voice, saying their final goodbye. But it’s more like . . . their entire essence tangled up in a song.
“How did he die?” Os whispers, wiping his eyes.
I can barely choke out “Suicide draft.”
The term gets a mixed reaction, with only some of the Gales seeming familiar with the concept. Os explains it to the rest, and one of the Gales I don’t know steps forward.
“Does that mean you almost got him out?” he asks.
I notice he’s about my age, so he was probably friends with Gus.
“We did get him out,” I say. “And we’d almost broken free of the Stormers chasing us. And then . . .”
Poor guy looks like I just kicked him in the chest.
“What about you?” Os asks Audra. “You seem unharmed.”
I’d better be imagining his annoyed tone, because I will seriously blast him off the face of this planet.
“Only minor injuries,” Audra says, reaching back to rub her right shoulder. “Raiden mostly tried to use Gus to break me.”
“Did it work?” Os asks.
“Of course not,” she snaps. “Though Gus deserves most of the credit. He endured more than any of us will ever know.”
I notice she doesn’t mention that they had the Westerly breakthrough.
That’s probably better—especially when Os points to me and says, “And I’m assuming you two have already rebonded?”
Yeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaeah . . . what am I supposed to say to that?
We came close, but I was worried she wasn’t ready—and also that she had maybe developed some feelings for Gus—so I stopped it, and now she’s probably disgusted with me?
Even saying “not yet” feels too presumptuous.
So I kinda want to hug Aston when he calls from outside the circle of guardians. “Since when are the Gales so interested in teenage romance?”
The guardians spin around and create a gap in their ranks to let Aston saunter through.
“Is it really you?” Os whispers.
“In the flesh,” Aston agrees. “Well . . . mostly.” He lowers his hood and knocks everyone back a step. “If you think this is bad, you do not want me to take off this cloak.”
He waves his arms back and forth, making air whistle through the holes in his hands.
All the Gales squirm and wince.
“Now you see why I stayed away,” Aston tells them. “That, and . . .” His focus drops to his ruined fingers. “I let Raiden find my breaking point.”
“You did,” Os says after several seconds of silence. “Though I’m not sure any of us can claim the same wouldn’t happen to us. And yet here you are. Reappearing after so many years—so many battles where your knowledge and experience could’ve aided us—and you’ve chosen to stand with him.”
“You mean our king?” Aston asks when Os points at me. “Isn’t that the side we’re all on? Or did I miss something during my time in the dungeon? Don’t tell me that just because he turned out to have a mind of his own—and occasionally decides to use it—”
“Hey!” I say.
“—that you’ve decided to undo a decade of planning,” Aston continues, ignoring me.
“That pla
n was a relic,” Os says. “From a time when we put far too much faith in the power of four.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so quick to write off the power of four,” Aston tells him. “It may work differently than how we were expecting—and at first I thought he was being lazy—”
“Again—hey!” I interrupt.
“—but I’ve realized that’s how the power functions,” Aston finishes. “It’s about trusting the wind, relinquishing your control and handing it over to the sky. That’s the Westerlies’ influence, I suspect. They like to make up their own mind, not be told what to do. So should we really be surprised their people are just as stubborn? You’re only mad because he won’t go along with your little betrothal plan. But surely you’ve realized by now they never would’ve worked out anyway.”
“Dude!” I say at the same time Solana says, “Hey!”—though I’m not sure why I’m arguing.
“Oh, you know it’s true,” Aston tells us. “You’ve been traveling together less than a week, and you’ve been at each other’s throats most of the time.”
Yeah, but half of our fights were because of the betrothal hanging over us.
Then again, why am I defending this?
“The matter of his marriage is only one of many points that we do not see eye-to-eye on,” Os reminds us.
“Yes. I can see that.” Aston steps closer, leaning in to stare into Os’s eyes. “That is quite a craving you’re bearing. It’s like looking at my own reflection—though with a bit less blue on the lips.”
“I have it under control,” Os says, backing away and blinking. “We have it under control.”
“That’s the lie we tell ourselves,” Aston says. He studies the nearest guardian and shakes his head. “You’ve all been training hard, I see.”
“We have,” Os agrees. “We’re trying to protect our people.”
“And who will protect them from you,” Aston asks, “when the need offers you anything you desire, so long as you surrender to the craving? What happens when you’re so empty and ruined that you’ll do anything for the rush of pain to pull you back together?”
“If that’s the price we have to pay to finish this, so be it!” Os snaps back. “Even you know we don’t stand a chance on our own—and they know it too, otherwise they wouldn’t have sent that.”
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