CHAPTER 38
AUDRA
I
t’s a trick.
It has to be.
Everything with my mother always is.
I shoo the vulture off Vane’s shoulder and it hisses at me as it
flies away. But it stays circling above us, despite the ravaged winds trying to knock it out of the sky.
My mother probably commanded the poor creature not to leave until it brought me back to her. But I have
innocent
people to protect.
“What are you doing?” I ask as Vane changes our course.
“Heading to the Maelstrom.”
“Don’t tell me you believe her,” I say, changing our course again.
“Look, I know your mother is hard to trust—and I know this feels a bit shady. But we’re kinda outnumbered here and your mom is crazy talented. If she says she can help us, I think we should let her.”
“How can you—”
I’m so distracted that I don’t see the Storm’s whip until it’s too late.
The stinging cord of air hits us dead-on, cracking so loud my ears ring as the winds carrying us unravel.
I cling to Vane, searching for a draft to stop our fall. But the Living Storm snatches us first, yanking us apart with cold, monstrous hands as it holds us in front of its face like it wants to examine its new toys.
“Hang on,” Gus shouts, tossing his wind spike at the Storm’s head.
I brace for an explosion of fog and chaos—but the spike bounces off without leaving a scratch.
The Storm’s fist tightens around me, squeezing so hard I’m sure it cracks one of my ribs. But I’m better off than Vane. I can hear him coughing and gasping for air as one of the massive fingers wraps around his neck.
Gus’s spike slams into the Storm again, aimed for the chest this time.
Again, it rebounds.
“Stay with me,” I scream as Vane’s desperate choking makes red rim my vision. But his eyes roll back and his body stops struggling.
“Help!”
I beg my Westerly shield, forcing myself to calm down and concentrate when the loyal draft’s song fills my mind.
It’s hard to hear over the cracking whips and the raging winds, but I manage to catch a single word that stands out from the rest. “Inflate!”
Both of our shields swell to three times their size, shoving open the Storm’s fists and sending us crashing to the ground.
I scream for a draft to catch us, but none of them respond—and I can see Gus racing toward me, but I know we’re falling too fast. All I can do is brace for impact and hope our shields keep us safe.
The ground comes up quick and hard and I wrench my neck as I tumble across the sand. But I’m bruised not broken as I jump to my feet.
Vane wasn’t as lucky.
The elbow on his left arm is bent at an angle that makes me wince just looking at it, and I stumble to his side, screaming for him to wake up.
“Come on,” Gus shouts, landing beside me and pointing to three Living Storms tearing toward us.
He tells me to wrap my arms around his waist as he throws Vane over his shoulder and blasts us back into the sky only seconds before the first whip cracks.
“What’s happening?” he shouts. “Why aren’t the spikes working?”
“It must be because Raiden broke the Living Storms.”
“That’s stronger than the power of four?”
“I don’t know. I think it might be.”
Aston did warn me about the
power of pain
.
I reach for Vane, hating that he’s still unconscious. But when my hand brushes his cheek, his eyes snap open and he coughs so hard Gus nearly drops him.
The coughs turn into a groan as Vane tries to move. “Careful,” Gus tells him. “You jacked up your arm pretty good.”
I take a closer look at Vane’s elbow, and bile rises in my throat. It’s swollen and twisted and obviously out of joint.
“We’re going to have to adjust it,” I tell Gus as he dips to avoid the crack of another whip. “He’ll be in too much pain to fight, otherwise.”
“Duck!” Vane shouts as a monstrous fist lunges for us and Gus barely slips us out of its clutches.
I shift my weight so I can let go of Gus with one hand, feeling the air for any usable winds. “We need to make a pipeline. It’ll launch us far enough away to treat him without wasting any time.”
“And we just abandon the Gales in the meantime?” Gus asks.
“What else can we do?”
“I’m fine,” Vane jumps in, but as soon as he tries to move his arm he can’t fight back his groan.
“We need to at least warn them about the broken Storms,” Gus decides as we dive so close to the ground I’m amazed we don’t crash. “Can you send them a message?”
“If I can find a draft.”
I stretch my concentration as far as I can and manage to reach a healthy Southerly. It takes three tries to get it to answer my call, and when it finally sweeps in, its song is so scattered I can tell it will only be able to hold a few words.
“Don’t trust the spikes,” I tell it, hoping the Gales have a backup plan. Then I send the wind away and search for drafts to build the pipeline.
“Any time now,” Gus shouts, launching us straight up as a Living Storm jumps in front of us. “It’s hard to keep up my speed with two extra bodies to carry.”
“I just need one more Northerly.”
“What about the one to the east of us?” Vane asks through labored breaths.
I can’t feel the draft he means, but he whispers the call anyway, and a weary wind sweeps in and joins with the others I’ve gathered.
For a second I’m speechless.
Vane’s senses are stronger than
mine
?
“Feng had me practice like five hundred times a day,”he explains. “He made you seem easygoing.”
No.
He did what I was
supposed
to do.
Gus turns to look over his shoulder at the Living Storms right on our tail, and I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing I am.
We owe it to Feng—to all the guardians whose lives were lost or destroyed—to stop this.
But first we have to fix Vane.
I shout the command, forming the pipeline right in front of us, and we fly straight into the funnel. The pressure makes my head throb and my eyes water and I’m worried the winds are going to collapse around us. But then we shoot into a gray, cloudy sky, and Gus tangles us in Northerlies and sets us down in the foothills.
I can see the whole valley in the distance. The line of Living Storms towers over the small desert towns, filling the air with a graybrown haze as they tear their way toward the Gales’ base. I hope Os got my message.
“Yep, it’s totally dislocated,” Gus says, reminding me why we’re here. “We need to pop it back into place.”
“Sounds like a party,” Vane mumbles, forcing a small smile.
“Can you handle the traction?” Gus asks me, and I order myself to nod.
Part of our guardian training includes basic medical procedures. But the idea of doing this to Vane . . .
“Ugh, it’s going to be that bad?” Vane asks, grabbing my shaking hand.
“Yeah, this is going to suck,” Gus tells him. “But not as much as what’s going on down there.”
We both follow his gaze and see the Storms curling into a circle, surrounding what has to be the Gales’ base. I hold my breath, hoping to see some sign that the Gales can handle them. But all I see are the Storms closing in.
“We’d better hurry,” Vane says, and I kneel in the sand, facing him with my knees pressed against his bad arm. His eyes never leave mine as I place both hands on his biceps and pin it to the ground— but he sucks in a sharp breath as Gus bends his elbow up to a right angle.
“Was that it?” he asks, his voice heartbreakingly hopeful.
“Sorry,” Gus mumbles. “I’m still trying to get it in the right position.” He bends Vane’s arm back toward the sand and Vane lets out a strangled cry. “Okay, I think we’re set. You guys ready?”
Vane nods as he turns to me. “Kiss me.”
“Dude, this is so not the time,” Gus groans as my cheeks turn hotter than the desert sun.
“It’ll distract me from the pain,” Vane insists.
I glance at Gus and he sighs. “He’s probably right.”
“Of course I am.”
The glint in Vane’s beautiful eyes makes it impossible not to smile. But I still can’t believe I’m doing this as I tighten my grip on his arm and lean close enough to feel his breath on my skin.
“I love you,” he whispers.
“I love you too.” My insecurities vanish as I press my lips against his.
I try to keep the kiss slow, but the heat between us keeps building until my head feels dizzy from the rush. Somewhere in my blurry thoughts I remember to keep my hands steady when Gus shouts, “Now!”
Vane’s lips pull away to let out one muffled scream.
“How does it feel?” I ask as Vane sits up and attempts to bend his elbow. He makes it about halfway before his face contorts with pain.
Gus sighs. “You probably damaged a few ligaments. We need to wrap it to keep pressure on it.”
There’s barely enough fabric on my dress as it is, but since Gus is still shirtless and Vane can barely move, there aren’t a lot of options. I reach for the back hem and tear a thick strand free, trying not to think about how much draftier it feels now.
I tie it around his elbow as tightly as I can. “How’s that?”
He takes another deep breath before trying to bend his arm, and this time he doesn’t wince. “Better. Though I think it would help even more if you tore off another piece of your dress.”
Gus shakes his head as I blush. “Dude, you’re hopeless.”
“And we need to get back down there.” I point to the desert basin, where the Living Storms are starting to scatter, heading into all the most populated areas.
“Dammit!” Vane shouts. “Why aren’t the Gales stopping them?”
He struggles to his feet, but barely lasts a second before he collapses to his knees.
“I’m fine,” he promises. “Just dizzy.”
But when he tries to get up again, he tumbles forward immediately.
“You’re way too weak to fight, man,” Gus says as he catches Vane before he lands on his bad arm. “I think we’re going to have to leave you here to rest and come get you when this is over.”
“I’m not going to hide in a cave while you guys fight,” Vane argues, trying to balance on his own. I move behind him as he wobbles, letting him lean against me.
“Just give me five minutes,” he begs. “All I need is some air.”
“Five minutes,” Gus repeats. “We need to come up with a plan, anyway.”
We all turn toward the valley, and my chest tightens when I see the Storms spreading even wider. It’s impossible to tell if the Gales are still fighting them, but the massive trails of destruction don’t look promising.
Vane reaches for my hands, locking our fingers together.
“I don’t see any Stormers, do you?” Gus asks, shielding his eyes and squinting at the mountains.
I shake my head as I concentrate on the winds. “I don’t feel any trace of them either.”Though I’m relieved to feel some of the Gales’.
There’s still a chance, even if it’s a weak one.
“Would Raiden really not bring them?” Gus asks.
“Maybe he didn’t want to risk losing any of them,” I suggest.
“Or maybe this is only round one,” Vane says quietly. “I’m not picking up any trace of Raiden, either, but there’s no way he’s not here. He’s up to something, I can feel it. I just can’t tell what it is.”
Gus sighs and runs his hands through his hair, pulling it loose from his guardian braid. “So what are we going to do?”
“There’s really only one thing we
can
do,” Vane says, staring up at the bird slowly circling above us.
The vulture should’ve lost track of us when we launched through the pipeline. But my mother has a way of always getting what she wants.
I guess that’s why I’m not surprised when Vane squeezes my hand tighter and tells me, “We have to go get your mom, Audra. She’s the only chance we’ve got left.”
CHAPTER 39
VANE
Y
ou really think we can trust my mother?” Audra asks, pulling away from me so quickly I lose my balance and have to sink to my knees.
“She told us she could help us, right?”
“That doesn’t mean it’s true.”
Audra calls the creepy vulture and it swoops down and lands on
a rock a few feet away, letting out an evil hiss that sounds like a possessed child. Even Gus backs away as it bows its gross red, bumpy head and holds out its massive black wing so Audra can count the notches in the feathers.
“How does she even know we’re in trouble?” she asks when she’s read the message again. “She’s trapped in a Maelstrom. The wind shouldn’t be able to reach her.”
“I don’t know—maybe the birds told her. Or maybe she can feel it. Her gift is pretty powerful, right? Seems like she might be able to pick up on something this huge. I mean, look at that.”
I point to the desert, where fires are starting to break out in the rubble. Smoke is mixing with the dust and thunderheads, making it harder to see what’s going on—which is probably better. My brain doesn’t know how to process that kind of destruction.
Everything
I know has just changed.
And the Storms are still raging.
“You don’t find it convenient that she’s reaching out to us now,
offering us vague promises when we’re at our weakest?” Audra asks me.
“Of course I do—and it reminds me way too much of the time she used Gavin to give away our location and nearly got us killed. But what other option do we have? Our wind spikes aren’t working and the Westerlies told me they can’t help us. The Gales look like they’re failing pretty epically down there—so what else are we supposed to do?”
I can hear the panic in my voice but I can’t choke down the fear this time—not when people are dying because of me.
“I don’t know how to stop this,” I whisper. “Do you?”
She hesitates before she mumbles, “No.”
Gus looks just as defeated.
“I think we have to let her help us then,” I tell them. “It’s the only play we’ve got left.”
Audra looks like she’s going to agree with me—but at the last second she turns away.
“I can’t trust her, Vane. I
won’t
. I made that mistake my entire life. I’m not going to do it again.”
Her voice is hard, and I can tell that’s her final decision.
But she’s wrong.
Unless I’m crazy—but I don’t think I am.
“Your mom was different when I saw her,” I tell Audra quietly. “Calm, and sometimes almost . . . nice. She didn’t tell the Gales about us bonding—and she backed up the lie I’d told to cover for you being gone. She even offered to help me sleep.”
Audra laughs, though it’s much more high-pitched and squeaky than her normal laugh. “Of course she did—because she wants you to set her free. That’s how she works.”
“That’s what I figured too. But she seemed like she really regretted what she’d done. And she told me she realized that her gift had driven her crazy—like, literally
crazy
. The pain clouded her mind, affected how she thought.”
“And that excuses her for murdering two people in cold blood and causing my father’s death?”
“Of course not—that’s why I left her there in Maelstrom. But it might mean it’s safe to let her out for a little bit. Especially when innocent people are dying and she might be able to help us save them.”
Audra wraps her arms around herself, fighting off a shiver. “She’s going to escape if you let her out.”
“Probably,” I agree.
I turn to Gus when she doesn’t say anything. “What do you think?”
He runs his hands through his hair before he looks at Audra. “I hate to say it, but I agree with Vane.”
Audra nods like she was expecting that. But her jaw is set, and her voice has a definite edge when she tells me, “Then I guess it’s a good thing you’re the king. I will obey whatever you decide.”
“I’d feel better if you’d agree,” I tell her.
Her eyes meet mine and her angry mask cracks. Two small tears streak down her cheeks as she whispers, “I can’t.”
Silence sits between us like a wall.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, wishing there was some magical word I could say to fix this. The best I can come up with is “You don’t have to see her. Gus and I will go—”
“No!”
Audra’s voice is so loud that the creepy vulture flaps its wings— sending a couple of nasty feathers my way. “She sent her message to
me.
I should be the one to go get her.”
She starts to walk away, and I jump to my feet to chase her— instantly regretting it when I fall back down. Especially since I stupidly put out my arms to catch myself.
I’m pretty sure the sound I make is like a dying hyena, and I curl into a ball in the dirt, rocking back and forth. The copper taste of blood tells me I bit my tongue as I fell—but it’s good to have something else to concentrate on besides my freaking ruined arm.
“Hey,” Audra says, kneeling beside me. “You need to rest.”
“I can’t—”
“Flying into battle when you’re barely functioning is only going to get you killed.”
“But—”
She puts a finger on my lips, definitely a good way to shut me up.
Warm tingles ripple through my face, and I close my eyes and hope it’s a sign that she doesn’t hate me.
“Please, Vane,” she whispers, leaning so close I can feel her hair brush my cheeks. “You’re not up for a battle. You have to stay here, where it’s safe.”
“You sure it isn’t that you just don’t want me around?” It’s mostly a joke, but she
was
pretty pissed a few minutes ago.
She reaches up to brush a couple pieces of hair off my forehead, not looking at me as she says, “I don’t trust my mother, but I do trust
you
.”
“You do?”
She nods.
That makes one of us.
“So I need you to trust
me
on this,” she adds quietly. “Stay here while I go release her.”
“You’re not going there alone—”
“He’s right—I’m going with you,” Gus interrupts, moving next to Audra. “But she’s right too, Vane. You had one of the worst dislocations I’ve seen. You need some time to recover.”
“But what if the guard won’t release Arella?” I argue.
I doubt they’d listen to anyone but the king.
“I’m sure her guard is fighting along with the Gales,” Gus tells me, which would explain how Arella was able to call the vulture close enough to send a message.
I try one more time to move my elbow, and it feels like someone is sawing it off with a rusty butter knife.
“Fine,” I grumble. “But if I start feeling better, I’m heading straight to the Gales to meet up with you.”
Audra sighs. “I won’t be able to stop you, but
please
promise you’ll only do that if you’re really up to it.”
“Only if you promise to be extra careful. If something happens . . .”
I try to swallow the fear, but it chokes me.
She cradles my face with her hands. “I can take care of myself.”
“I know. But I’m still going to worry the entire time. Do you need me to tell you how to find the Maelstrom?”
Audra points to the stupid vulture, which I’m pretty sure is sitting there hoping one of us is about to die. “Her bird will guide me.”
“Make sure you walk the last part,” I warn them. “Otherwise the winds carrying you will get sucked in.”
“Not if we fly with Westerlies,” Audra corrects. “I flew right up to Raiden’s Maelstrom in Death Valley.”
She starts to stand, but I grab her wrist with my good arm. “Promise you’ll come back safe.”
“I’ll try.”
I tighten my grip.
“Promise.”
She leans down to kiss me.
It’s a fast kiss—more of a tease than anything. But it makes the wall I’d felt between us seem to vanish as she pulls her hand free.
I try not to feel like a worthless Vane-blob as Gus carries me to a spot in the shade and props me against a boulder. But I can’t help sulking as Gus wraps his arms around Audra and she forms a Westerly wind bubble.
I glower at the sky as I watch them float away.
And when they disappear into the clouds, I realize that Audra never promised to come back.