Author: Shannon Messenger

“Close your eyes,” she whispers when I start to shake again.

I don’t argue. I squeeze my eyes shut and press my hands against my ears. But I still feel the winds Audra calls to wrap around the body and float it far, far away.

Somewhere out there is the other Stormer I knocked from the sky. I shiver, even though the sky has cleared and the heat’s beating down in full force.

I hope we never find him.

I can accept what I’ve done—sort of. But I know it’ll haunt me forever. And I don’t ever want to do it again.

Which leaves the bigger question.

I force my eyes open and take Audra’s hands. “Now what?”

“I have no idea. I need to speak with my mother. I hope she isn’t . . .” She looks away.

I’m glad. She misses the way my face twists with rage.

I haven’t forgotten what the Stormer told me about Arella abandoning us during the fight. She made that whole big show, claiming she’d planned to back us up all along. And then she ran. She has to be the most selfish, pathetic coward I’ve—

“I’d better use the emergency call,” Audra says, interrupting my venomous thoughts. “That should tell her where we are. It’ll alert the Gales, too.”

“Whoa—hang on. There’s an emergency call?”

She won’t look at me, and her cheeks flush.

I squeeze the bridge of my nose. “So all this time you could’ve just made a call to the Gales and asked for help?”

“It isn’t that simple. The emergency call broadcasts our precise location for all to see. As long as Raiden didn’t know exactly where we were, it would’ve been too dangerous to use it. But he knows we’re here now, after all the turbulence we’ve caused.”

She stands and whispers the call for an Easterly, a Northerly, and a Southerly and twists them in a pattern that feels familiar—even though I’ve never seen her do it before. Maybe that has something to do with our bond.

She cups her hands around her mouth and blows into the mini cyclone, then whispers, “Launch.”

The funnel narrows until it looks like a piece of rope. It streaks into the sky so high I can’t see where it ends.

She sits back beside me and I take her hand. “Now we wait.”

I can think of a few ways we can pass the time. But I know Audra’s worrying her mother won’t come back.

And I’m trying to figure out what I’ll say when she does.

My blood runs cold when I hear a rush of wind behind us.

“Mother,” Audra says, jumping to her feet.

I stand too, grabbing Audra’s hand to keep her at my side.

Arella rushes toward us. “I’ve been so worried.”

“Really?” I hold out my free arm to block her from getting too close. “Then where have you been this whole time?”

Arella stops, looking just the right amount of annoyed and ashamed. “I’ve been making my way back here. The Stormers bound me in their stripped winds and launched me into the sky. I barely managed to stop my fall, which is the only reason I survived. And they shot me so far into the desert it took me ages to make my way back.”

“Ages,” I repeat. “You couldn’t just fly back?”

“Vane, what’s wrong?” Audra asks.

“One of the Stormers told me your mom bailed on us during the fight. Ran away with her tail between her legs and left us to fend for ourselves.”

“Well, obviously he lied,” Arella insists without so much as blinking.

I’ll give her one thing—she’s a much smoother liar than her daughter. But she’s still full of crap.

“Really? ’Cause you don’t look like someone who was overpowered and flung into the middle of the desert. You don’t have a scratch on you.”

Arella tries to hold my gaze, but breaks eye contact first.

Guilty.

“I landed in a soft sand dune,” she finally explains.

I snort. “Seriously? That’s the best you’ve got?”

She doesn’t have a speck of sand on her.

“You left us?” Audra asks her mother, though she sounds more sad than angry. “When did you leave?”

“I didn’t—”

I cut Arella off before she can tell another lie. “The Stormer said she ran off as soon as they found where we were hiding—which was thanks to your stupid bird, by the way. I told you he was evil.”

“Gavin’s not evil,” Audra says quietly, staring into the distance. The winds pick up around her and she closes her eyes.

It’s an Easterly, singing of unwanted change.

Audra’s eyes snap open. “Why was Gavin there?”

When no one answers, she turns to her mother. “You told me you’d send him home—and Gavin would never disobey a direct command. So why was he still at the wind farm?”

“How should I know?”

The edge to Arella’s voice doesn’t match the cool, indifferent stare she’s giving us. Neither does the way she’s rubbing nervously at the golden bracelet on her wrist.

She’s hiding something.

Audra must realize it too, because she pulls her hand away from me, backing up a few steps. “Gavin never would’ve stayed if you’d sent him home. And he never would’ve flown to me under those kind of dangerous conditions, not unless . . .”

All the color drains from her face. When she speaks again, her voice is barely louder than the whipping winds. “Did you send him to me?”

“Honestly, Audra—I don’t know what you’re—”

“Please, Mother!” Audra takes several deep breaths before she speaks again. “You’ve never forgiven me for what happened to Dad. Admit it!”

Anger flashes in Arella’s eyes, but whether she’s mad that Audra would think that or furious that Audra figured it out is anyone’s guess. “Audra—”

“The whole ‘making peace’ thing you said last night was just an excuse, wasn’t it?” Audra interrupts. “You planned this. You wanted to use Gavin to betray me today—the same way I betrayed you. You wanted me to die, didn’t you? Admit it!”

Before I can think of something to say to any of that, Arella starts laughing. It’s a cold, mocking sound, and I can’t decide if I want to tackle her or get Audra the hell away from the crazy woman.

“That’s your theory?” Arella shouts. “Then you’ve officially lost it, Audra. You want to know the truth? Fine—I’ll give you the truth. I did what you were too weak to do. I forced Vane’s breakthrough. I knew it would never happen unless you were in mortal danger. So I did what had to be done. And it worked—didn’t it? You speak Westerly now, don’t you?”

“So you gave away our location to the Stormers—without even warning us?” It takes all my willpower not to rip the smug smile off her face. “We almost died. And you did it for my breakthrough?”

“For the key to defeating the greatest enemy our world’s ever known? You bet I did. I’m a guardian, Vane. I did my job—since my daughter didn’t have the courage or skill to do it.”

“Guardian?” I spit the word. “You’re damn lucky I had the breakthrough, because if I hadn’t, Audra would be dead now and I’d be Raiden’s prisoner. A real guardian would’ve protected us. You ran because you’re weak!”

“You think I’m weak?”

She waves her arms, and the winds stir around us without her uttering any commands.

Audra tries to back away, but I hold our ground. I call one of each of the four winds and tangle them around my hand.

Arella gasps.

Yeah—that’s right. Let’s not forget who’s the last freaking Westerly here.

“You may know a few tricks, but I’m the most powerful guardian in the Gales,” she hisses like a coiled snake ready to strike.

“If you’re so powerful, why couldn’t you save us during the fight today? And why couldn’t you save my family ten years ago?”

Arella laughs again, the sound so harsh it makes both Audra and me jump. “You want to blame someone for your parents’ death? Then you’d better blame my daughter. Ask her what happened that day.”

Audra makes a strangled sound, like she’s just been kicked in the gut.

I pull her against my side, supporting her. “She already told me what happened.”

Arella steps forward, a glint in her eyes. “Really? So she told you she called the wind to save Gavin after a Southerly knocked him out of the sky? That she branded the draft with her trace and didn’t even have the decency to tell us so we could prepare? That she killed her father and your parents? You know all of that?”

Audra starts to shake.

“It wasn’t your fault,” I remind her. “It wasn’t.”

“I know,” she says, surprising me with the conviction in her voice.

She pulls away from me, rounding on Arella. “I never told anyone it was a gust of wind that knocked Gavin out of the sky. And I never knew what type of draft it was. The only way you could know it was a Southerly is if you were there. And if you were there, then you knew the Stormer was coming—and you didn’t warn Dad. Almost like . . .”

She stares at the sky, like she’s watching her words hover over us, not sure what to do with any of them.

That makes two of us.

“You wanted the Stormer to find us, didn’t you?” she finally whispers.

Arella hesitates before she answers.

But she knows she’s trapped. So she raises a defiant eyebrow at Audra. “Yes.”

CHAPTER 56

AUDRA

It wasn’t my fault.

The words are so foreign—so impossible—I don’t know how to wrap my mind around them. The more they swirl around my head, the more they boil into rage.

Vane tries to hold me steady, but I pull away.

“Why?” I scream at my mother. “You killed Dad. Killed Vane’s parents. Let me take the blame—ruined my life! How could you do that? Why would you do that?”

“You think I killed your father?” She reaches under her uniform and pulls out my father’s pendant, holding the black cord. “You think I wanted this? I loved him. I chose him—out of all the men who wanted me. I bonded to him.”

She waves her link toward my face, pointing to the worn, tarnished cuff like I don’t know what it means.

The winds swell with her anger and she hugs her arms to her chest. Shaking from the pain.

I’m too disgusted to feel sorry for her. “You let the Stormer find us. Did you send the Southerly, too? Knock Gavin out of the sky, knowing I’d save him?”

The thought makes my eyes burn and my stomach heave. The birds were ours— the one thing we shared. “You know how strong our connection to birds is—you knew I wouldn’t be able to resist. You planned the whole thing, didn’t you, so I would take the blame?”

Some small part of me wants her to deny it—wants to believe she couldn’t possibly be behind all the pain and loss I’ve suffered for the last ten years.

Instead, she looks away. “All I wanted was my life back. Our lives back. Our beautiful house in the hills, wrapped in Easterlies that soothed instead of distressed.” She swipes the skin of her arms like she’s trying to sweep the winds aside. “You have no idea what I endure every second, and you don’t care. No one does. Everyone only cares what my gift can do for them. Only your father understood—and when we bonded he promised he would shelter me, ease the burden as much as he could. And he did. Until his family came along.”

She turns on Vane. “They refused to share their language, even after we gave up everything to help them. And they wouldn’t fight, either. Claimed the training caused them pain.” Her eyes darken as she hugs herself, battling another tremor. “They knew nothing of pain.”