Author: Shannon Messenger

CHAPTER 18

AUDRA

Screams. Horrible, bone-chilling screams whip around me in an unintelligible blur of noise as rocks, dirt, branches, and so many other things I can’t begin to identify pummel my body.

I stumble, fighting to keep my feet on the ground, refusing to let the gusts carry me away. We can’t fight this storm—it’s already destroyed too much. But I won’t leave without my father.

Something tugs at my wrist, yanking me back a step. I spin around, squinting through the pebbles and dirt and blurry wall of wind to find the outline of a boy’s face. Takes me a second to piece together that I know him.

“We have to go back,” Vane yells.

Before I can answer, a bloodcurdling screech pierces the air.

“Mom?” Vane drops my wrist and races deeper into the storm.

I chase after him, arriving at his side in time to see a woman in a blue dress streak across the sky. She thrashes against the winds that wrap around her like bonds, but she can’t break free.

“Mom!” he screams again, jumping, trying to reach her.

She’s too high.

“Vane?” She thrashes harder. “Run. You have to—”

Her words are carried away by a shifting gust. The sudden flurry alters course, rushes past an uprooted tree, and whips it toward her. I close my eyes, but I can’t block the sickening crunch as one of the jagged branches slams into her, and when I look up her body’s bent at an unnatural angle. Her head lolls to the side. Bloodred rain showers around us.

Vane screams, an unearthly yelp of agony and rage and terror.

I do nothing.

I cannot move.

Cannot think.

Cannot do anything except stare at the broken body in the blue dress, trailing blood through the sky as it whisks into the darkness.

“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 grove, 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?”