I brace for impact, but at the last second my Westerly shield surges, coating me in a thick shell of air that absorbs the bulk of the crash.
The Living Storm’s giant fist hurtles toward me and I scramble to my feet seconds before it crushes where I’d been lying. I stumble toward my lost wind spike, but the Storm grabs my legs and I have to cling to cracked ground with all the strength I have left.
I’m about to lose my grip when a blur of blond hair charges toward me and slashes through the wrist of the Storm with a spear of deep blue.
The Storm’s arm crumbles into a thick gray fog that makes it impossible to see as its roar of pain shakes me down to the deepest parts of my essence.
I fight my way through the flying debris as the Storm howls again and more fog explodes around me.
Before I can take another step, a streak of blue shoots past me, slicing through the thickest mass of fog. The sickening gray mist parts for the briefest second and I get a glimpse of the blond warrior as he raises his spike and launches it for the Storm’s head.
“No!” I scream—but it’s too late.
The spike hits its mark and the world explodes.
The choking cloud turns everything black as the earth shakes and rocks rain down and a high-pitched squeal sears into my brain. I know I need to run, move, breathe. But I can’t.
The Storm is gone.
Vane is gone.
Strong hands grab me from behind, shocking me with tiny sparks when they spin me around.
“Hey, calm down,” a familiar voice tells me as I kick and thrash and fight to break free. “It’s me.”
I freeze, squinting through the fog to stare into a face that’s every bit as perfect as it is impossible.
“Vane?” My knees give out and I collapse into the warm arms that shouldn’t be here, soaking up the electric tingles I wasn’t supposed to feel again. “You’re dead.”
“I am?”
He takes my face in his hands and tilts my chin up, forcing me to look into his eyes—vivid and blue even in all this darkness and chaos.
I don’t know if this a dream or a delusion—but I know what I want to use it for. I pull his face down to mine and kiss him with every ounce of the love and longing that I’ve held on to all these weeks.
He tastes sweeter than I remember, and the heat between us is more intense, surging through me like a desert storm as I part his lips and kiss him deeper. His sparks burn on my tongue as I let the last parts of myself pass to him—sharing everything. Making him mine.
This is all I want, and if somehow I get to live this dream instead of having it ripped away, I’m never letting go. Never letting fear come between us again.
I hear another explosion and Vane’s hands slide to my shoulders and push me gently back.
We both gasp for breath and I shake with a giddy laugh.
He’s still here.
Still warm and beautiful and—
“We’re in a crapload of trouble—you do realize that, right?” he asks me.
I force my eyes away from his face and realize the fog has cleared enough to show the chaos and destruction all around us.
“I know, I’ll explain later,” Vane says to someone behind me, and I spin around to face the blond warrior, who I realize is a Gale I vaguely remember from my days in training.
“Looks like I get three for the price of one,” Raiden calls, his deep voice echoing around the canyon.
I glance up and find Stormers crouched in the cliffs all around us, holding wind spikes aimed perfectly at our heads. Every possible path is blocked—even the entrance to the Maelstrom—and the air is filled with nothing but scratchy, broken drafts.
Raiden stands between two of his Stormers on the highest foothill, his stance oozing calm and confidence as he studies the three of us.
“I’d surrender now, if I were you,” he warns.
Vane raises his wind spike as Gus sweeps his hair back and hands me the weapon I’d lost. He has another, darker blue spike clutched in his fist.
“You got any ideas?” Vane asks him.
He wipes away the blood that’s streaking down his face from a cut near his eye. “Yeah. We fight.”
CHAPTER 25
VANE
A huge part of my brain wants to celebrate the fact that AUDRA JUST KISSED ME!!!!!!! But this is so not the time.
“I’m being very generous with my patience,” Raiden calls as the Stormers in the cliffs test their aim. “I’d prefer to bring all three of you with me—but I really only need one. So put aside your weapons, lie down on the sand, and spare yourself unnecessary losses.”
“Or you could put down those pathetic things you call wind spikes,” Gus shouts back, holding out the spike I made him so the sunlight shines along the sharp edges, “and spare me from having to pick you off one by one.”
I grab his arm and pull him closer to Audra and me. “It’s probably not a good idea to piss off the guy who could shout a kill order any second.”
Gus wriggles out of my grip. “He’s not going to kill us. He saw what I just did to his beastly Storm thing—he’ll be careful until he sees how powerful we are. And pissing him off is the best way to get him to tell me where my dad is. People get sloppy when they’re angry.”
“Your dad?” Audra interrupts.
Just the sound of her voice makes my heart all race-y.
Dude—focus!
“The Stormers took him this morning,” I tell her, surprised at how long ago that feels. “That’s how we found this place. We followed their trail.”
“How long have you been here?” Gus asks Audra. “Did you see where they brought him?”
“I did,” Audra whispers, turning very pale.
Gus grabs her arm. “What? Where is he?”
She’s wobbling so much I have to steady her against me. “What’s wrong?”
“I . . .” Her voice cracks and she takes a deep, shuddering breath. “The Storm—”
“I’ll give you until the count of ten!” Raiden shouts.
Gus leans closer. “We’re running out of time. Where is my dad?”
“Nine!” Raiden calls.
Audra shakes her head, her eyes glassy with tears as she holds Gus’s stare. “The Storm that you . . . I watched Raiden make it. He took a prisoner and he tangled him in dark winds and made them swell into a giant mass, like a cocoon. And when the drafts finally unraveled, all that was left was . . .”
I watch all the blood drain from Gus’s face, and I’m sure mine’s doing the same.
So . . . the weird Storm thing with a head and arms.
That was . . .
And when Gus destroyed it, he . . .
“Seven!” I hear Raiden shout as Gus drops his wind spike and backs away, like he can actually see his father’s blood on it.
“What did the prisoner look like?” I ask Audra.
“He had a hood over his face. But he had a Gale Force uniform on and Raiden said the Stormers just captured him today—and that he put up a fight and delayed them.”
“Six!”
“God, Gus—I don’t even . . . ,” I say as Gus’s eyes get cloudy and he starts to sway. “I’m so sorry—and I feel like a jerk for saying this, but . . . you have to hold it together right now. We’re in a serious mess here.”
I pick up his wind spike and he jumps back like it has the plague.
“Please, Gus. If we don’t do something, Raiden’s going to get exactly what he wants.”
“I’ll give him what he wants,” Gus screams, snatching Audra’s spike from her hands.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when he turns around and launches it straight for Raiden’s heart—but I am.
And so is Raiden.
He shouts a garbled command and some of his ruined winds slam against the spike. But it slices through them like butter, and the Stormer next to Raiden has to yank him out of the way—and the spike still tears a thick gash in Raiden’s arm before it embeds in the mountain’s face.
r /> Everyone freezes.
Raiden glares at the red seeping onto his pristine sleeve, and I’m guessing it’s been a while since someone actually got one up on him. The Stormers seem shocked too, watching their leader with wide eyes and open mouths, like they can’t believe he actually bleeds.
“Okay, time to go!” I yell as Raiden orders his Stormers to attack.
The broken winds rage to life, making the air feel thick as they claw and tear at our skin. We shove our way through, trying to zig and zag to make ourselves harder targets as dozens of wind spikes explode around us.
Now would be a really awesome time to form a pipeline and blast ourselves out of here—but there are no usable drafts to call.
“Over there,” Audra shouts, pointing to a huge boulder that will give us at least some cover.
She barely makes it another step before a wind spike slams into her shoulder, knocking her to the ground.
I hear myself scream, and tears blur my eyes, but Audra stumbles to her feet and runs to the shadow of the boulder. Gus and I follow and I drop to my knees, pulling her close and checking her for injuries.
She doesn’t have a mark on her.
“How is that possible?” I ask, running my hands over her perfect skin. Warm sparks make my hands tingle, but I can also feel a soft breeze.
“It’s a Westerly,” Audra explains. “It’s wrapped around me like a—”
The rest of her words are smothered by an explosion.
A batch of wind spikes hammers our shelter and the boulder cracks down the center as rocks and dust shower around us.
“We need a shield,” Audra shouts before she whispers the same plea in Westerly.
I watch in wonder as the draft around her stretches into the air above us, spreading thinner and blanketing us in a silky dome of cool wind. I’ve never seen anything like it.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Audra already knows more about my language than I do—she’s sort of the queen of I Am Better than Everyone Else at Everything. But it’s strange to see how naturally the Westerly responds, not caring at all that it’s being ordered around by an Easterly.
I push against the thin wall of air and my hand slips right through. “Uh, is this going to be strong enough?”
“I guess we’ll find out,” she says, as a wind spike crashes into a nearby boulder, pulverizing it into itty-bitty pieces. “But it’s kept me safe so far.”
“Thank God,” I whisper, brushing my hand over her perfect shoulder again.
She reaches up and wipes my forehead.
“I’m fine,” I tell her as we both stare at the blood on her fingers.
She nods. Then she pulls me closer and kisses me—so quickly it’s over before I can even process it. But I can still feel her heat in my lips.
“What was that for?”
“I’ve lost you twice in the last few days. I don’t want any more regrets.”
Well, I’m definitely a fan of that kind of thinking. But . . . “Wait—twice? When was the other time?”
“We’ll talk about it later. Right now we have bigger things to worry about.”
We both glance at Gus.
He looks sweaty and pale and is clearly in the middle of some sort of meltdown—not that I blame him.
I grab his arm and shake him as another spike pummels our hiding place. “Stay with us, okay?”
He nods, but it’s a weak nod, and I can tell by the way he closes his eyes that we’ll be lucky if he can manage to run on his own.
“There has to be a way out of this,” I tell Audra. “I mean, we have the power of four. Aren’t we supposed to be unstoppable?”
“Raiden plays by different rules.”
The rock we’re hiding behind explodes, but the shards and pebbles bounce off our shield. I try to tell myself that means it’ll protect us, but when I spot two wind spikes headed straight for us, I can’t help pulling Audra behind me to shield her myself.
We both duck and cover as the spikes hit their mark, and the ground vibrates from a shock wave that makes my ears ring. But when I lift my head, the Westerly is still covering us, creating a pocket of clear air in the thick wall of dust.
“A most impressive trick,” Raiden shouts from somewhere across the basin. It’s impossible to see through the chaos, but it sounds like he’s getting closer. “You’ll have to teach it to me when you’re ready to surrender.”
“Yeah, I don’t think we’re going to be doing that,” I shout back—though I’m very aware that our safe little bubble leaves us very much trapped and outnumbered. “Any chance this thing is portable?” I ask Audra.
She runs her hands along the draft. “I can’t think of a command that would do that, can you?”
I close my eyes and whisper my request, trying to let my instincts take over. But the wind’s song turns quiet. Almost sad. Singing of burdens that are too heavy to carry alone.
“I think we’d need one for each of us,” I tell her.
“We’d have two more Westerlies if we unraveled our wind spikes.”
True . . .
“But then we’d have no weapons, no plan, nothing but a shield—and we have no idea how strong that shield is. Can it really hold up against a windslicer?”
“I don’t know,” Audra admits. “I don’t even know if a Westerly would be willing to shield Gus, since he doesn’t speak their language—and none of the other winds have a command that works like that. I think it’s a Westerly thing. They’re defensive winds, not offensive.”
Three freaky-looking balls of dark, cloudy winds stick to our shield, and I pull Audra to the ground as they explode like grenades.
The poor Westerly screams as it suffers through the blow, but it still manages to keep its hold around us. It’s the most stubborn, loyal wind I’ve ever seen. Probably why it likes Audra so much.
“Maybe we should fly, then,” I say as Audra whispers soft words to encourage our faithful shield. “We could unravel the spikes and use the winds to get us the hell out of here.”
“Do you really think we’ll be able to outrun Raiden’s entire army with a handful of tired drafts?”
“If we used the power of four.”
She shakes her head. “There’s a trick they can use that would hold us suspended in the sky—even with all four winds. I’m not sure how it works, but I’ve been trapped by it, and it left me spinning helplessly for hours. We need something too fast for them to interfere with, like a pipeline. But those require a very specific set of winds.”
And they suck.
It’s like voluntarily stepping into a tornado and letting it blast you somewhere at warp speed. But it’s probably our best bet.
“We’ll need a distraction,” I decide. “Something that’ll keep Raiden busy so we can get far enough away to find the winds to make a pipeline. Any ideas?”
Another round of freaky wind grenades attach to our shield, and Audra shouts at the poor Westerly to stay strong as they explode.
I’ve never heard a draft screech the way our shield does, like it’s actually in physical pain. But still, it holds on.
“How many winds are in these wind spikes?” Audra asks, pointing to the two I made.
“Only one of each.”
A giant boulder slams into our shield, but somehow the amazing Westerly rebounds it away. It crashes harmlessly next to us in a giant cloud of dust.
Audra sits up straighter. “What about a haboob?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“A haboob. It’s a massive dust storm that swallows everything in its path.”
“Okay, I’m trying to think how that would work, but all I’m hearing is ‘boob.’ ”
She glares at me as another wave of wind spikes smashes against us so hard I see our poor shield ripple. They must be almost on top of us, and I have a horrible feeling that when they get here they’ll be able to reach right through our little dome of air, just like I can. Assuming the Westerly can even hold out until then.
“A haboob would work,” Audra insists.
“Okay, you’re going to have to stop calling it that.”
She ignores me. “My father used to make them all the time. They’re one of the best ways to cause mass confusion—which is what we need right now. My father always used Easterlies, but I bet we could do it with Westerlies.”
“Okay, putting aside the haboob jokes—which I will be saving for later, by the way—how many drafts did your dad use for something like that?”
“Hundreds,” she admits.
Another explosion of wind spikes rocks us, and we both whisper soothing words to calm the terrified shield.
“The three Westerlies we have might be enough, though,” Audra says quietly. “Two in the spikes, plus the one wrapped over us. We need only a few minutes so we can get to higher ground and find the winds to blast out of here.”
“Right, but in the meantime we’d have no weapons, no shield, no nothing.”
“I don’t see another option—do you?”
No.
But . . . “I’ve been training with the Westerlies, and it’s very tricky to make them do anything violent. They’re about peace and calm and shelter.”
“I know, I’ve found the same thing. But haboobs are just a frenzy of force and dust. We’re not hurting anyone. We’re simply creating enough chaos to distract Raiden so he lets his guard down and a few healthy winds can seep in.”
Another whammy of wind spikes attacks, and this time dust and rocks sprinkle through small gaps forming in our shield. The Westerly’s not going to hold on much longer.
“So what do you want to do?” Audra asks me.
I can’t make this decision.
If something goes wrong and Gus or Audra gets taken . . .
I take her hands, clearing my throat so I can force my next words out. “Listen. Raiden’s not going to kill me. I could make a deal with him—”
“No, Vane. He’s seen me speak Westerly too. And he’ll kill Gus just for revenge—or keep him alive and . . .” She shudders, wrapping her arms around herself. “I’ve seen firsthand what he can do.”