Heir of Thunder (Stormbourne Chronicles Book 1) (24 page)

A GODDESS REBORN

The ghost was back. He sat in an old chair that had seen
better days long ago. Slumped over and holding his head in his hands, he looked
so tired. He was close enough to touch, but who had ever heard of touching a
ghost? I was compelled to try anyway.

“Gideon,” I said, reaching for the his big, strong hands. “Am
I dead, too?”

His head popped up, and he looked at me with bleary eyes,
but also with uncharacteristic concern. “No, you aren’t dead, but you had us
guessing there for a while.” He shifted out of the chair and sat beside me on
the bed.

A patchwork quilt covered me and white lace draperies swayed
with the gentle rocking of my room. I was thankful for the absence of blue. “Then
this is a dream, and I’m imagining I’m back on the Tippany’s airship.”

He nodded. “It is like a dream, flying like this.”

“You don’t look like a dream... or a ghost.” I brushed a loose
hair from his forehead, something I would never have dared to do in real life. He
grasped my hand before I pulled away and held it in his lap. “You don’t feel
like one either,” I said.

Gideon smirked. “Why do you think I’m not real?”

“Jackie said Vesper Praston must have killed you or thrown
you overboard. No one knew what had happened to you.”

“He said that, did he?” A dark shadow crossed his. “Well, I’m
no ghost, and this is no dream. We’re truly aboard a godsforsaken airship.”

“But that’s impossible,” I said. “It’s impossible to escape
Thibodaux’s house. I tried.”

I sat up straighter and pulled my hand away. If this were
real, then I couldn’t understand why he was touching me like this. The real
Gideon was remote, aloof…angry. He would never touch me this way.

He leaned closer and spoke, his tone earnest. “Impossible
for a girl who survived falling overboard in a sea squall? Who escaped pirates
and freed her friends from slave traders? Who found a job and made her hands
bleed by washing dishes while protecting her friends? Impossible for a princess
who befriended a bunch of enigmatic, elitist nomads and convinced them to carry
her where she needed to go, earning their respect so well along the way that
they were completely willing to throw in with my ridiculous plan to rescue you?”

“Well, when you put it that way....” I laughed and realized
that it was the first time I had done such a thing in a while, so I did it
again. Gideon smiled, showing his dimple, and it made his face into something
almost too lovely to bear.

“Evie, I....” He paused and his brow crumpled. “I can’t
believe it. What you’ve done... I never would have believed you capable.”

“You thought I was a spoiled, useless princess, didn’t you?”
I laughed again, and he almost blushed. Almost. “You’re right, I was. But I’ve
learned a lot about myself lately. I like the person who was inside me all this
time. I wish I could have met her sooner.”

“I like her, too,” he said. His tenderness made my pulse
buzz in my ears, but in a good way. “How did you do it? How did you manage?”

I pondered that same question so many times, and I had yet
to find a satisfactory answer. “I guess I have more of my forefathers’ abilities
in me than I thought.”

Gideon peered into my eyes as if he intended to see all the
way to the source of my power and find the answer himself.

“Tell me what happened while we were apart,” I said and
tempted fate by sliding my hand back into his big paw. His hands were rough,
but strong—the kinds of hands that worked hard and promised protection. He hadn’t
died, and he had saved me again. The relief of it felt like a rebirth of some
kind. My hope sparked back to life.

Gideon didn’t pull away. Instead, he curled his fingers over
mine, took a deep breath and said, “Obviously, Vesper Praston did not kill me.”

Gideon’s Tale

Gideon couldn’t have testified in a court of law—he never
actually saw Vesper Praston in the moments before something heavy clobbered him
on the back of his head and dashed him into unconsciousness. But no one else
aboard the
LaDonna
had Praston’s means, motive, and opportunity. The
explosion of Evie’s lightning woke him from his stupor, and he found that, in
his rush, Praston had done a poor job checking him for hidden blades. He
retrieved a knife from his boot and cut his bindings.

By the time Gideon recovered his wherewithal and slipped
free from the ropes, Evie’s dip in the ocean had turned into a lengthy soak,
and she had passed out of sight. Fortunately for Praston, the same lightning
bolt that saved Evie had fried him to a crispy shark snack—fortunate because if
Gideon had managed to get his hands on him, death would have taken much longer,
and he would have suffered a great deal more pain.

That left Gideon and Jackie staring agape at the port side
railing, searching for any hint of an Evie shaped buoy. “She’s a survivor,” he
told Jackie, though he said it more for his own reassurance.

“What should we do?” Jackie asked.

“I’m not sure. She knows we meant to go to Pecia. Maybe a
fishing boat will pick her up.”

“You think she’ll make it?” Jackie asked, sounding doubtful.

“Maybe. She’s tougher than I first thought. I’ll wait a
while in Pecia, see if she shows up.”

Gideon was actually quite sure Evie would perish in the
ocean, but without her, he had lost his purpose, and he had little other option
for how to bide his time. Besides, he didn’t care for Jonathan Faercourt, and
he decided at that moment to discover the truth about the sly character who had
charmed his way into Evie’s affections.

The
LaDonna
landed in Pecia early the next morning.
Gideon made overtures of parting ways with Faercourt, but promptly set to
spying on him. In the beginning, his story appeared truthful. He spent his
first day with his sister and their aunt in her Pecian townhome. As the days
passed, however, Jackie spent more and more time at the home of another man.

In a variety of seedy locales, Gideon first heard Ruelle Thibodaux’s
name, and, in hushed references, Le Poing Fermé. When he pressed his fellow bar
patrons, no one wanted to speak of the secretive cabal. When they ventured to
speak of it at all, none of their words eased his worries.

Gideon knew nothing of Le Poing Fermé’s plans for Evie. When
several weeks had passed with no sign or word of Evie’s survival, he began to
lose the small seed of hope he had clung to after that fateful night on the
LaDonna.
Eventually, he made arrangements to purchase a horse and travel on to Dreutch,
to the contacts he had there.

It was on the same night before his planned departure that a
band of Fantazike men entered the bistro where he often dined. They were in a
celebratory mood, for they had been released from a short tenure in prison. The
retelling of their experience with the politzen reignited his small flame of
hope. The Fantazike men spoke of a girl who had been captured along with them.
She had traveled with them from Espiritola and earned her way with her powers
over the storms, filling their energy cells with lightning, as they needed it.

“What happened to this girl?” Gideon asked after buying the
Fantazikes a round of drinks. His command of Gallandic was fluent—he’d always
had a knack for languages. “Did they let her go when you were set free?”

“Oh, no,” one of them answered—an older man with salt and copper
hair and with eyes the color of smoky quartz. “She did not go to prison with
us. They kept her and took her somewhere else.”

“Where?” Gideon asked.

The Fantazike shrugged. “I do not know. Maybe the politzen
captain kept her for himself.”

Gideon suspected otherwise. He dashed from the pub and ran
all the way to Thibodaux’s house, assuming Evie’s appearance in Pecia had
already come to Jackie’s attention. That night he watched a festive crowd
arrive at Thibodaux’s residence and recognized Jonathan Faercourt among the
guests. Something had obviously inspired their excitement, and Gideon believed
Evelyn Stormbourne was that something.

He would have secured Evie’s escape sooner, but it took him
nearly another week, and quite a bit of bribery, to find the Fantanzikes and
convince them to talk to him about Evie. When he investigated enough to learn
that she had traveled with the Tippany family, he finally found the willing
accomplices he so desperately required.

Malita and Niffin regaled Gideon with tales of Evie’s
escapades in the time since she had gone missing and together they hashed out
the details of her rescue. What he learned from them meshed with the opinion he
had formed as he and Evie traveled through Inselgrau together. In his days as
horse master on her father’s estate, Gideon—when he had thought of her at all—had
assumed her to be a spoiled, useless princess.

She had since proved him wrong, and he vowed never to
underestimate her again.

Gideon told his tale while stretched out on the bed beside
me, his last few words slurring as though he were drunk—no doubt a side effect
of his fatigue. “I don’t know what kind of glass Thibodaux used in that window,”
he said, “but I had a hell of a time breaking it open.” His words fell off into
quiet snores.

“He stayed up all night by your side,” Melainey said from
the doorway. “I’m sure he’s exhausted. Come with me, and I’ll find you
something to wear besides that nightgown. Then we’ll go to the kitchen. Puri
would love to feed you.”

When we entered the kitchen, Puri assaulted me with hugs and
kisses. Malita and Niffin also embraced me, patted my back and wiped away tears.
The old lady fed me gnollitas, stuffed grape leaves, ground bean fritters in
spicy yellow sauce dotted with tiny red peppers, and plenty of her fresh baked
rolls. I stuffed my gut until it groaned with the strain of holding it all in.

Timony stuck his head into the tiny galley and winked at me
as I wiped up the last bite. “If you’re feeling up to it, there’s a storm
brewing just off the port bow. We could use a little refueling.”

I swallowed a burp as I rose to my feet. “Happy to oblige.”

He grinned. “I did not want you to think this was a free
ride.”

I returned his smile. “I didn’t think the Fantazikes knew
the meaning of the word.”

The thrill of exercising my powers restored my good cheer,
and I danced around the deck with Niffin, helping him stow away the lightning
rigs. Gideon showed up on deck at the moment Niffin announced the energy cells
could take no more. “Get enough rest?” I asked him.

“How could I sleep with all the commotion?” His face was still
soft from sleep and he looked much younger, more like his twenty years than
usual. He wore one of the oiled slickers, but no goggles and the wind batted
his hair about his face until he looked like a wild and vital creature from a
mythical tale.

“I haven’t asked them where we’re going,” I said. “I assume
you’re taking me to Dreutch as you originally planned?”

He glanced away. “Yes.”

“Will you tell me now what’s waiting for us there? Why that
country of all places?”

His solemn, granite gaze studied the horizon as he prepared
his answer. “You know the legends say that the peoples of Inselgrau descended
from the peoples of Dreutch?”

“Yes.” I had heard it many times. Inselgrau was even a
Dreutchish word meaning
gray island
.

Gideon cleared his throat and continued. “The history of
Inselgrau and the Stormbournes is intertwined to the point that that it’s
impossible to separate them. It’s a little known fact that your family began
their rule in Dreutch, but a clash between two brothers split the family, and
one of the brothers left to begin a new kingdom on Inselgrau.

“Before I came to work for your father, I grew up in the
house of Lord Daeg. The faith of the Dreutchish people faded faster than that
of their Inselgrish counterparts. It left the Stormbournes of Dreutch without
power, and they became the Daegs hundreds of years ago. They still have a great
deal of money and influence, but they no longer rule over the storms.”

“Why would Father never told me of this?”
More secrets.
I wondered how many more there could be? And how much danger would they bring
me, when I couldn’t properly anticipate them? I had worshipped my father, thought
him infallible. Recently my faith flagged, though. What service had he thought
he was doing me, keeping me ignorant?

“The Stormbournes and the Daegs have hated each other for
centuries. I’m sure your father never spoke of them because it would mean
acknowledging they existed.”

I clenched my jaw. “He wasn’t like that.”

Whether I had doubts or not, I still refused to hear others
speak badly of my father, but the evidence made it hard to continue seeing him
in a perfect light.

Gideon shrugged, but didn’t argue. We stood shoulder to
shoulder in silence until Timony directed his airship out of the storm.

“So, you’re taking me to Lord Daeg?” I asked.

“Yes, he’s the closest thing to family you have now.”

“If the Daegs and Stormbournes hate each other, won’t he
hate me, too?”

He traded his candidness for his typical stoicism. “I’m
hoping that time has begun to heal old wounds.”

***

The distance from the little town of San Marena to Pecia was
half the distance from Pecia to Steinerland, the capital of Dreutch, but we
made the journey in less time because the Tippanys were anxious to rejoin their
clan. In addition, a great mountain range, called the Omegs, stretched between
Galland and Dreutch. The mountains rough and rugged terrain deterred hospitable
settlement and discouraged us from stopping anywhere along the way.

I feared the unknowns of Lord Daeg and his household almost
as much as I feared Jackie, Ruelle Thibodaux, and Le Poing Fermé, but I trusted
Gideon and his judgment. If he thought this was the best place for me, then I
would defer to his wisdom.

I waited at the starboard bow while Timony made final
adjustments to prepare for landing. The horizon rose, and the mountains, once
craggy shadows in the distance, now seemed close enough to reach out and touch.
A footstep scraped over the boards behind me, and I turned to find Gideon
approaching.

He wore a sly grin and kept his hands behind his back. “I
have something for you.”

“What is it?”

His smiled widened, revealing his dimple, and he brought out
a bundle of fabric that sent my heart soaring.

“My Thunder Cloak? I thought I had lost it for good.” I
swirled the fabric around my shoulders and instantly felt more like myself than
I had in weeks.

“I found it floating in the ocean the night you went
overboard. We can’t afford for you to lose it. It’s entirely too useful.”

A wide grin split my face, and I wanted to sling my arms
around Gideon and hug him. Instead, I simply said, “Thank you... for
everything.”

His good cheer faded, and he turned away, putting his
profile to me. “I made a promise.”

I turned back toward the horizon and the faint outline of
Steinerland’s skyline shown in the distance as we sank towards the ground.
Timony wouldn’t fly closer to the city for fear of attracting unwanted
attention. “A Fantazike on his own is too much temptation for the criminally
minded,” he had said.

“How long will it take us to get there?” I asked Gideon.

“Most of a day, I guess. It would be faster if we both had
horses, but with only one... Well, he’ll bear our combined weight, but we’ll
have to move slower, and he’ll tire more quickly.”

The moment after the ship set down and the hold doors were
opened, Gideon’s new horse, Wallah, bolted out. He pranced in anxious circles
until Niffin managed to calm him and convince him to stand still. Unlike the
Rhemonies bred for air travel, Wallah had spent the journey in a nervous tizzy.

The goodbyes were hard, especially to Malita.

“Goodbye my friend,” she said, surprising me with the new
words she had learned. Tears glittered in her eyes, and her bright smile
dimmed. I hugged her fiercely, and she returned my embrace with matching
passion. “We meet again.... We meet again.”

Emorelle, Puri, and Melainey clasped me in a group embrace,
and Puri passed me a bundle of goodies from her kitchen. Niffin kissed my cheek
and promised to take good care of Malita. Timony said goodbye last, shaking
Gideon’s hand before pulling me in for a bone-crushing squeeze. “You are always
welcome aboard,” he said. “You have had some bad luck for yourself, but you
have brought us nothing but good tidings. If you ever need to take succor with
us again, our deck is open to you.”

“Thank you, Timony....” I wanted to say more, but feared I
might start crying, and I had shed enough tears to last a lifetime.

“There, there, my girl.” Timony patted my shoulder. “We’ll
never be but so far away. The world is a much smaller place than most people
think.”