Author: Shannon Messenger

My head aches from my tight braid, and it’s too much for my exhausted brain to handle tonight. I undo the careful knot at the end, letting my hair unweave, finally releasing the pressure. The dark, wavy strands settle around my face.

I will never be glamorous like my mother. I have too much of my father in me. His square jaw and narrow nose. The low arch of my brows.

Still, there’s something dark and mysterious about my reflection in the window. Something striking and powerful.

Is that enough to count as beautiful?

What does Vane see when he looks at me?

I turn away, tempted to punch the glass. I’m in the greatest danger of my life, and I’m playing with my hair and wondering if the boy I can’t have—and refuse to let myself want—thinks I’m pretty.

It’s time to get ahold of myself—now.

I reweave my hair into the braid, pulling the strands tighter than ever. If only I could wrangle my feelings as easily.

I can’t. So I’ll do the next best thing.

I slip into my jacket, unsheathe the windslicer, and stomp outside to the widest clearing in the grove. The still night is thick with the sounds of skittering rodents and chirping insects, and the warm air makes my clothes cling to my skin. But I don’t care.

I bend my knees, squatting into my starting posture. Two deep breaths bring me focus. Then I throw myself into my memorized exercises.

I slash and stab. Dip and spin. Race up the sides of trees and back-flip off. Dive toward the ground and somersault back up. Push my lithe muscles as hard as I can, ignoring the extra weight of the water, the extra burn in my limbs.

Sweat soaks my uniform and I pant for breath. Still I swipe and thrust, hacking leaves off the palms, slashing trunks, slicing the air with a surge of strength and speed.

This is who I am.

A fighter.

A guardian.

Stronger than Stormers.

Stronger than Vane.

Beyond all emotion.

I don’t give in to fear or pity or love. I’m the one in control.

The reminder fuels my weary body with an extra burst of energy, and I swing the blade with a vengeance. My thoughts vanish. My brain steps back, letting my limbs remember the motions on their own. Running on instinct.

My muscles throb, but the pain is liberating. Helps me clarify my purpose.

Vane needs to have the fourth breakthrough.

I can’t stand back and wait for it to happen. I have to trigger it myself.

But how?

My legs turn to rubber and I collapse to the sticky, date-covered ground. I reach for the nearest Easterly and pull it around me to help cool me down. And as I listen to its song I realize . . .

Wind.

Vane needs maximum Westerly exposure. The more winds bombarding him, the better chance there is he’ll find a way to breathe one in and let it settle into his consciousness. To hear it.

I may not be able to call the Westerlies to him.

But I can bring him to the Westerlies.

Tonight.

Now.

It will work. I have to believe it will work.

And if it doesn’t, I doubt anything else will.

CHAPTER 35

VANE

I yawn for the ten zillionth time, shaking my head as my eyes blur from staring at the endless, empty stretch of freeway. I point the AC vent at my face to let the cold air jolt me awake.

“You know, when you said you’d come get me a little earlier,” I tell Audra, “I was thinking like four thirty—which is still ridiculously early, by the way. But two a.m.? Are you trying to kill me?”

“I need to know if this will work.” She sounds way too alert for this time of night. Doesn’t she ever get tired?

Her words hit me then. “If? I thought you said this would work.”

She shifts in her seat. “Nothing is guaranteed. But this should work.”

Should is a whole lot different than will. “And if it doesn’t?”

Silence.

Guess that means there isn’t a Plan B. Though, honestly, I’m surprised she found a Plan A.

We pass a sign that says LOS ANGELES 81 MILES.

I groan. “Remind me why we aren’t flying there?”

“I wasn’t sure I had the energy to get us there and back.”

The change in her tone makes me turn toward her. She’s fidgeting with the ends of her braid. She tends to do that when she’s hiding something from me.

I’m tempted to call her on it, but I have better questions to ask. The way I see it, this drive is an hour and a half of uninterrupted “Ask Audra” time—and I will get some answers.

“So,” I say, trying to figure out where to start, “assuming this works, and I have a Westerly breakthrough or whatever, where do we go from there?”

She considers that, like she hasn’t thought it through. Which says wonders about how unsure she is. “I suppose I’ll contact my mother so she can send word to the Gales.”

“Your mother? Your mother’s the one you went to a few nights ago? Who denied your request for backup?”

“She’s helping as much as she can.”

I snort. “If that were true, we’d have a whole army at our side.”

“She’s a guardian too, Vane. She’s bound by her oath to serve just as much as I am. Personal connections can’t get in the way.”

Her voice is calm. Detached.

But I don’t buy that she doesn’t care. I mean, dude, I’m not even related to my parents, and I still know they’ll do anything to keep me safe. Even if it means breaking the law or oath or code or whatever. And that’s how it should be.

So I can’t stop myself from saying, “She sounds tough.”

“She can be,” she mumbles under her breath. “Especially since . . .”

I know what she means, even though she doesn’t finish. “Was she better before that?”

“Sometimes.”

She falls quiet, and I figure that’s all she’s going to say. But then she adds, “She used to love to watch me make the birds dance.”

“Dance?” I can’t help picturing a bunch of pigeons twitching their necks to the beat.

“If I’ve connected with a bird, I can command it to flutter and twirl and flip through the sky. My mother used to lie next to me on the grass, and we’d watch them sweep across the clouds. She said it was the one way I reminded her of herself.”

Her voice sounds warmer, lighter with the memory.

“So, what does your mother do as a guardian—besides turn her daughter away in her time of need?”

Audra ignores my snipe. “She keeps watch on the winds. She can feel things in the gusts—traces and warnings and secrets—and she uses her birds to send that information to the Gales so they know of any possible dangers. Right now she’s using her gift to stall the Stormers as long as she can and send warning when they draw close. I expect to hear from her any day.”

Any day.

I know time is counting down quickly, but it gives me goose bumps to hear just how little we have left.

“So what’s your mom’s name?” I ask, partially to get my mind on something else, but mostly because I have to know if the name I heard in my dream is real.

“Arella.”

“Arella.” That explains why she’s the one who told my father we had to move again. She must have caught the Stormer’s trail early.

It also means Audra lied to me when she said my memories were gone forever. I figured as much. But now I know for sure.

I need to know why.

So far none of the fragments I’ve recovered give me any clue. And I’d barely begun a dream tonight when Audra ripped the sheets off me and dragged me out of bed. Which was actually pretty sexy. She can—

“Did you hear me?” Audra asks.

“Sorry. What did you say?”

“I said the Gales will send reinforcements if you have the fourth breakthrough tonight.”

“Oh, sure. Send help after I have the breakthrough that makes me invincible or whatever. Why bother protecting me now, when I’m vulnerable? Idiots.”

She sighs.

“It’s true, and you know it. Do you really expect me to believe you don’t mind that they’d rather let you sacrifice yourself to save me than send you some backup?”

“They just believe in me. Believe that I’m strong enough to handle this.”

“Even if they do, they’re still gambling with your life. And mine.”

She can’t argue with that.

“And how exactly does it help me if you sacrifice yourself? Even if you take out the Stormers, all that does is leave me here like a sitting duck, no way to contact the Gales, just waiting for Raiden to send someone else to come get me. Brilliant plan, guys.”

“It wouldn’t be like that. My mother would know what happened and send for the Gales immediately.”

“So why not just do that in the first place? Why let her daughter die first?”

“You don’t understand.”

“You’re right. What kind of people expect someone to sacrifice their life to save someone else, when they could send help?”

“Because the Gales are under constant attack from Raiden. They can’t spare anyone right now just to save my insignificant life.”

“You’re not insignificant,” I blurt out before I can stop myself.

She clears her throat. “Besides, you wouldn’t be defenseless. I’d pass my gifts to you. Give you my knowledge and skills by letting you breathe me in.”

“Why does that sound creepy?”

“I assure you, it’s not. You just don’t know how the ultimate sacrifice works.”

She takes a breath before she continues. “We have two forms. Our earthly form and our wind form. Our wind form is infinitely more powerful. We’re almost invulnerable to injury, and it gives us a whole other arsenal to fight with. If you have no ties to the earth, you can shift between the two. Like what I did in your room a few nights ago. It’s rarely attempted and hard to achieve and quite painful. But possible.”

“And if you have food or water in your system?”

“Then the parts of yourself that were bound to the earth will crumble and drop away in the shift, and you won’t be able to reclaim them. That’s why the water weakened me so much. I’m grounded until the last drop is gone.”

It’s way too late at night for my brain to understand crazy concepts like this. “But if that happened, you wouldn’t really be dead. You’d just be wind, right?”

“Yes. But you’ve permanently sacrificed your earthly form. Life as you know it is over. And the ultimate sacrifice requires you to sacrifice your wind form as well. I don’t know that much about it—it’s only happened one other time, besides my father.”

Her voice catches and she clears her throat before continuing. “As I understand it, you let the winds rip you apart and tackle the storm piece by piece in a unified, mass bombardment. Your consciousness stays with you long enough to let you whisper thousands of commands that shred the storm and destroy anyone inside it. But you scatter with the winds. And there’s no way you can put yourself back together before your consciousness fades away.”

My grip tightens on the steering wheel.

No way I’m letting her do that.

“But as you surrender yourself, you can send your gifts to someone else. So the talent isn’t lost. My father—” Her voice catches again and she pauses for another breath. “My father sent me his gift when he sacrificed himself. It’s why I can walk so easily on the winds. Why I’m a guardian so young. And if I have to sacrifice myself, I’ll send it to you.”

“I don’t want it.” My hands shake so hard we swerve toward the shoulder. “I don’t want your talent. You’re not doing that, Audra. I don’t care how bad it gets. Promise me that.”