Author: Shannon Messenger

“Pretty sure they felt pain when they were murdered!” Vane shouts, holding up the winds he called, ready to hurtle them at her.

I grab his arm to stop him. He studies me for a second, then lets the winds go free.

I take a breath, trying to figure out what to think, what to feel.

The summer sun presses down on us, but my mother shivers as another draft sinks into her skin.

“I couldn’t live that way anymore,” she whispers. “Out in the hammering winds day and night. I pleaded with your father to give up the assignment. But he was like you. Loyal to the Gales beyond all reason. Put his oath above everything. Above me. So I found another solution.”

My fingers curl into claws and I want to lunge for her. “Your solution got everyone killed!”

“No darling, that was you.”

The words knock me back and I feel Vane steady me.

“I planned everything carefully,” she insists. “I offered Raiden a deal—the Westons in exchange for my family’s freedom. Sent the message hidden in a flurry and waited. I felt the moment he received it, and the winds told me he accepted. So I started sending out our location—then I’d warn everyone right before they caught up and we’d run. I wanted to convince your father that we’d always hear them coming, so he’d let his guard down. And I was careful. I found ways to tip Raiden off that couldn’t be traced back to me. I knew your father wouldn’t understand.”

“Because you’re a traitor!”

It’s like she doesn’t even hear me. Her mind’s somewhere else as she rubs the bird on her cuff, staring into the void between us. “I did everything I could to keep my family safe. I convinced your father to start eating, so he’d be too weak to fight. I used you to give us away because I knew your father would forgive you. And I thought it would make you more obedient if you thought you were to blame.”

“Obedient?” Vane shouts. “You framed your daughter—let her take the blame—”

“She was to blame!” My mother’s hard eyes focus on me. “When the Stormer came, I’d almost convinced your father to flee—almost convinced him to abandon the Westons because we weren’t strong enough to save them. But then you ran back into the storm. That’s when it all fell apart. I felt you get caught. Your father went to rescue you, but the storm snared him, too. So I fought my way to the Stormer to demand he release you both and he told me he had orders to kill me.”

“Serves you right,” Vane spits. “In fact, I think I was there when that happened. I saw you fighting. Right before he beat you and flung you out of the storm like trash.”

“He did not beat me.”

“Really? That’s not what it looked like from where I stood. You did some fancy wrist flick thing a few times and pissed him off—but he still launched you out of his way.”

“Because you distracted me! And I hurt him in ways you can’t even imagine.”

The chill in my mother’s voice turns my blood cold.

She scratches at her skin again, and for the first time I see the pain for what it really is. A poison sinking into her.

I’m afraid to know how far it spread.

“Vane?” I ask, barely able to form the word. “Tell me exactly what you saw.”

He frowns, like he’s reliving the memory. “I saw the Stormer attack your mom. At first she was losing, but then she flicked her wrist and knocked him over with the wind somehow. Then he made himself an indestructible shell of winds, so she flicked her arm and attacked the other Stormer. That’s when he got pissed and launched her away so he could go help his friend.”

Spots dance behind my eyes and I don’t want to hear any more. But I have to know. “Why did you think there was another Stormer?”

“I heard a guy cry out somewhere in the distance after she flicked her arm. Who else would it be?”

I wobble on my feet, wishing I could drop to the ground and never get up again. Anything to not have to tell Vane the truth.

“There was only one Stormer,” I say, forcing myself to look at my mother. She’s staring me down, like she knows what I’m thinking and is ordering me not to say it. But she can’t hide her secret anymore.

I’ve always wondered how things went so wrong that day—how two trees could accidentally impale Vane’s parents after they’d been captured. The Stormer never would have let anything happen to Raiden’s precious cargo.

But with a flick of her wrist my mother could’ve sent those jagged boughs anywhere she pleased.

“You killed the Westons, didn’t you?” I whisper.

Vane sucks in a breath.

My mother doesn’t even flinch before she responds. “I betrayed Raiden the same way he betrayed me.”

Her words form a storm in my head, twisting and pounding as I fight them, block them—refuse to accept them. But truth always finds a way to sink in.

I search my mother’s face for any sign of guilt or regret—or even madness brought on by her poisonous gift.

But she looks . . . blank.

And her voice is unashamed when she adds, “They never would have survived Raiden’s interrogation. They were as good as dead anyway.”

“That’s only because you helped them get captured!” Vane screams.

“They didn’t deserve my protection,” she snaps back. “They were weak—and weak by choice. I was done worrying about them. All I wanted was to get my family out of there. And that’s what I tried to do. But my husband wouldn’t leave you. He sacrificed himself to save a worthless little boy.” She lunges for Vane.

I yank him out of her reach and shove her back, clawing her skin as I do.

My mother laughs as she stares at the bloody trails I’ve left on her bare arms.

Laughs.

The cold, empty sound shatters the last of the illusions she’s wrapped around herself, showing me who she really is—or has become.

A murderer.

She must see the realization on my face because her eyes narrow and she reaches up, tearing out the knots of her braid and letting her hair fall free. “I guess this means we’re done pretending. And I’m done protecting you.”

“Protecting me? You’ve done nothing but belittle and ignore—”

“Not you, Audra—you’ve already gotten more than you deserved when you inhaled your father’s gift. But I have been protecting him.”

Vane barks a laugh, sounding very close to unraveling. I grip his arm to stop him as he advances toward her.

“Why did you protect him?” I ask.

“Raiden wanted me dead. I couldn’t risk losing the support of the Gales. Besides, Vane has what Raiden wants. So I erased his memories in case he saw too much and hid him away. Let you watch over him so you’d stay out of my sight—and voted against you being a guardian so you’d push him as hard as possible to prove me wrong. Waited for his Westerly breakthrough. And now it’s finally happened. I can finally take my revenge against Raiden.”

“I’ll never help you,” Vane growls, reaching for the wind.

“Oh, I think you will,” she tells him. “I know how to get through to you.”

My mother’s a blur of motion as a jagged piece of windmill launches at me, missing my skull by inches.

It takes me about two seconds to process the fact that my mother just tried to kill me. Then I shove Vane out of the way and launch a crusher.

The thick funnel slams into her, squeezing her at the waist—making her eyes bulge. But my mother weaves a wind spike and stabs the winds, breaking free.

She launches the spike at Vane.

I tackle him and the spike streaks over our heads as we crash to the sandy ground. Dirt and debris rain around us.

“You okay?” I ask, scanning him for wounds.

“Yeah. You?”

I hear the next wind spike coming and roll us out of the way. Sand explodes everywhere.

“You’re just as hopelessly in love as he is, aren’t you?” She blurs again as she launches another spike. Vane barely scrambles away in time. “Maybe you should have to feel what it’s like to lose what you care about most!”

Vane starts to call the wind to our side, but I place my hand over his lips to silence him.

I don’t want him fighting anymore.

Besides—this is my battle.

I jump to my feet, launching another crusher at my mother in the same motion.

She dodges the funnel with unnatural grace and speed.

“What’s your plan here, Audra? You can’t match me—even with your father’s gift. I was always the more powerful one.” She flicks both wrists, flinging more windmill debris. I barely manage to dodge in time. “You can’t stop me.”

She’s right. Her gift gives her the upper hand in any fight.

But she’s also wrong.

She doesn’t know my secret.

Vane and I bonded. And when we melded together, he filled my mind with a single word—a word I didn’t understand until right now.

Peace.

I know Westerly.

I’ve never heard of a bond allowing people to share languages. But for us, it did.

So I weave the nearest Westerly into my next vortex and hurtle it at my mother with all the force I can manage. Then another. And another.

One for the Westons.

One for my father.

One for Vane.

She collapses, covering her head, screaming from the pain as the whipping winds tear her clothes, her hair, her skin. Red rivers of blood streak from her face and congeal in the sand. Still I hammer her, unleashing ten years of pent-up rage. I rip my father’s pendant from her neck. She doesn’t deserve to mourn for him.

This. Ends. Now.

I stare at my mother’s dirty, bloody, unconscious face as I weave the four winds into a spike, just like the one Vane made before. It feels cold in my hand.

Deadly.

I raise it over my mother’s heart.

CHAPTER 57

VANE

For a second I’m too stunned to move.

Audra speaks Westerly?

Then reality sets in, and I scramble to my feet.

She’s hurt and angry and has every right to rage out on her mother. But I throw myself on her, knocking the wind spike free.

I pin her arms as she thrashes for freedom.

“Hey,” I breathe. “It’s me, okay? It’s me.”

She slows, just enough to really look at me, and her fury fades.

“There’s my girl.”

“Let me go, Vane—I have to—”

“Murder your mother? I know she deserves it, but do you really think you could live with yourself? You speak Westerly, Audra. You think you could deal with that?”

“I’m an Easterly.”

“But you’re part of me now too. So you better think it through very carefully, because you’re seconds away from seriously screwing up your life. Which I’d rather you didn’t do. I’m kinda looking forward to us being together. Making out all day. Taking a break for dinner. Then making out again all night. But if you want to waste all of that on her—if she’s worth that . . . I won’t stop you.”

I let go of her shoulders.

She looks away. Tears pool in her eyes.

“I know. Believe me—I know. She killed my family too.” I punch the ground as I say it, then try to swallow the rage. “It’s not worth it. It’s not.”

I stare at the bracelet on my wrist—all I have left of my parents after Arella stole them from me—and wonder if that’s really true. But the arrow on the compass still points west, reminding me of my heritage.

Violence isn’t the answer.

Audra rolls to her side and curls her legs into her chest. I pull her against me as she sobs. I stroke her face, her arms. Wipe away the tears, the dust, the dried blood. Try to make her better.