Author: Shannon Messenger

But I didn’t add my song to the wind I sent Vane. My melodies were silenced the day my father died.

It felt like a piece of my heart crumbled away just weaving together the lullabies, but Vane deserves a last night of peace. He has a heavy burden resting on his shoulders—far heavier than the tasks resting on mine. The next few days will be the hardest of his life.

It surprises me how easy it is to empathize with him. Over the years I’ve had a hard time not resenting him. Hating that his life is more important than my father’s. More important than mine. I worried it would be hard to be civil once we were forced to interact.

And he is . . . challenging—but not always in the ways I expected. Some of my reactions tonight are a mystery to me. Like my hesitation to tell him the truth—one of the most fundamental aspects of my assignment. Or the times I was moved to touch him.

His arm.

His lips.

Why did I do that? I never intended to do that.

Had it been pity?

I want that to be the answer—but it doesn’t explain why my skin still simmers everywhere we touched. Why even now, just remembering the way he held me, or the look in his eyes, leaves my chest strangely empty. Almost like . . .

I stamp out the thought before it can finish.

Whatever those feelings are, I’ll squelch them immediately. I don’t need Vane Weston complicating things any more than he already has.

Gavin nips at my hand and his talons dig into my wrist, his not-so-gentle way of reminding me that I’ve stopped stroking the silky gray feathers along his back. He can be a demanding creature, but he’s my best friend. And he’s the only one who doesn’t hate me for what happened. He also ignores his instinct to migrate north, just to stay with me. So I tolerate his difficulties. Even when he leaves a half-eaten rabbit on the floor.

My stomach rumbles at the sight, shooting needles through my abdomen.

Another side effect of the water.

The longer we go without eating, the more our stomachs shrink. It’s a painful process—and why most guardians end up giving in at least once a year to stop the hunger pains.

Not me. And after ten years, my stomach had all but shrunk away.

Now the water’s revived my appetite, and the craving burns so intense, even the gruesome carcass or the rotting dates on the floor tempt me.

A flame of anger sparks, but I snuff it out. I deserve every hardship, every discomfort, and then some. My life doesn’t matter. It might as well have ended that day in the storm.

But I did survive. And earned my father’s gift—though I’ll always feel like I stole it.

I can still feel my mother’s fingers digging into my skin as she rocked my shoulders. Screaming that I took the only part of him she had left. That he shouldn’t have chosen me over her.

I still don’t know why he did.

The whispered message he sent with it left me no clue. Just, I know you will use this well, my darling Audra.

He’d wanted me to have it. So I’d breathed in, letting the wisdom and energy flood my mind as the tears streamed down my face and the last wisps of my father drifted away with the squalls.

I vowed then and there that I’d finish what he started. Become a guardian. Prepare Vane. Make him stronger than anyone ever thought he could be, so he can end Raiden’s reign of terror.

And now I’ll protect the innocent people in these arid cities from the Stormers.

Which means calling for help is my duty.

But . . . I can’t seem to make myself do it.

I don’t have a safe way to contact the Gale Force on my own. They divide the information guardians are allowed to have—and since I know everything there is to know about Vane Weston, they tell me nothing further.

It’s a safety measure that saved us four years ago, when Raiden captured two of our best. None of us know the full horrors he put them through—but he broke them. And learned the Gale’s deepest secret. That Vane survived the attack that killed his parents all those years ago.

But he didn’t learn where we’d hidden him.

And so Raiden’s relentless search began.

That’s when I finally became a guardian. Before, I was merely “in training,” and had to report to my trainer daily with my progress. Even then, the Gales worried the pressure was too much for my age and tried to force me to take breaks from my duties. But I always snuck back to watch Vane. I couldn’t risk that something would happen in the time I was away. And once Raiden knew Vane was alive, the Gales could stall my appointment no longer. Vane needed constant protection, and I was the best Gale available. I’m the youngest guardian by far, but no one can match my skill and determination. The decision was almost unanimous. Only one vote against.

My mother’s.

Not because she worried for my safety. She didn’t think me capable.

Now I have to go to her and explain what a mess we’re in. Beg for help.

All I’ve endured and survived tonight will be nothing compared to that.

Which is why I sit frozen, stroking Gavin and searching for some reserve of strength to do what needs to be done. I finally find it in the stuffy black jacket now buttoned across my chest. In the slight pull from my braid.

I rewove my hair and changed back into my uniform the second I came home. I can’t let myself forget my role.

So I give myself to the count of five to wallow in fear and pity. Then I send Gavin to his perch on the windowsill, order him to carry away his mutilated carcass before I return, and push myself off the floor.

I call two of the Northerlies I sent from the mountains and wrap them around me with barely a breath. Their song of power and endurance fills my mind as they float me away.

I haven’t flown this path since the day I left four years ago, but the way is scarred into my brain. Over the hills, past the forest of spiky, twisted Joshua trees to the small, square house hidden in a stretch of desert so vast and empty I’m not sure the groundlings have any idea it exists. Which is why the Gales chose it.

The house is dark, but she’s home. I can feel her presence in the chill in the air. In the tightness in my chest.

I send the winds away, touching my feet to the soft sand quieter than a cat stalking its prey. Still, a slight movement near the window tells me she knows I’m here. Nothing can sneak up on her. It’s another of her gifts, and it only failed her once.

But that was my fault.

Birds of all shapes and sizes watch me from their rooftop perches as I cross the sparse yard, their glassy eyes glowing in the moonlight. They’re drawn to her, abandoning their instincts in order to stay within her reach. Years ago they would’ve greeted me like their kin. Filled the air with their ringing songs as they swooped and swirled, brushing my skin with their silky feathers.

Now only their judgment surrounds me. They’ve rejected me as much as she has.

Once a month my mother sends one gloomy crow to check my progress. He claws me with his razor-sharp talons as he delivers her message—the same message every time. My only contact with my mother, or the Windwalker world.

Has he had the Westerly breakthrough?

An update on Vane. The only thing that matters.

I ignore the birds’ mocking stares and focus on the lone, gnarled oak—a testimony to survival and endurance in the arid desert landscape. I kneeled in the shade of its leaves when I swore my oath to the Gales. My mother didn’t even bother to come outside.

I left that day and never came back. Never planned to return.

This is necessary, I remind myself as I force my feet up the steps.

The house is small, plain, and beige—the kind of place your eyes might skip entirely unless you tell them to pay attention. My mother despises it.

If she had her way, she’d return to our old estate in the east. Surround herself with the soothing tradewinds of our heritage and escape the turbulent desert storms.

But that’s not an option now.

An icy wind blasts the door open, and I’m proud of myself for not jumping. I’m prepared for her games. But I can’t stop my legs from shaking as I cross the threshold into the sparsely furnished, unlit room.

Leave it to my mother to keep our first meeting in four years in the dark.

“Well,” she says in her deep, throaty voice as she rises from a plush armchair by the only window. Moonlight streaks down the delicate lines of her perfect figure and face. Even darkness—or the scowl on her lips—can’t dull her beauty. “Given your dejected demeanor, and the shifting Northerlies I’ve been feeling all night”—she shudders, rubbing the skin on her arms like it itches—“I’m assuming you’re here to ask for help.”

“It’s nice to see you too, Mother.” I can’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. I don’t blame her for the way she’s treated me since my father died. That doesn’t make it hurt any less.

She doesn’t respond. Instead, she rubs the skin on her arms harder—like the itch has grown into pain—and waits for me to speak again.

I clear my throat. “I need you to call the Gale Force for aid.”

One perfectly arched eyebrow rises in my direction and I fight back my sigh. She’ll require every last detail before she extends even the smallest bread crumb of assistance. So I give her the full story: how I used the Northerly to stop Vane from bonding to a groundling. How I joined the wind to force Vane’s Easterly breakthrough. And how Vane gave me water while I was unconscious. I don’t explain the predicament that leaves us in. She knows as well as I do.

My mother makes dramatic pauses a work of art, but I refuse to so much as blink until she finally tosses her long, raven-black hair and turns away. As a fellow guardian, she should be wearing the regulation braid. But my mother’s like a wildwind. She follows her own flow. It’s what my father loved most about her.

She swishes down the hall, flicking on the light so I can see her silky green dress shimmer with each movement. My mother’s never worn a true guardian uniform, needing her skin exposed to the wind in order to use her gift. The slightest ripple in the air speaks to her as clearly as the words of the wind’s song. A secret language only she understands. A constant push and pull. An ebb and flow of power and drain, stillness and motion.

A rare gift and burden none of us have ever understood. But my father tried harder than anyone. He was awed that her strength caused weakness, and he did all he could to steady the turbulence so she could rise above it.

It’s what she loved most about him.

She scrapes a chair across the floor and sits at the narrow, empty table. She doesn’t invite me to join her. I wouldn’t anyway.

Against my will, my focus is drawn to the place it hurts most to look. To the wind chimes hanging over the table, where a chandelier would be.

A blackbird—carved in exquisite detail—soars with spread wings over a series of gleaming silver chimes. My father made it for her the day she chose to bond to him and it has hung from the breeziest eaves of every house we stayed in, filling the air with its tinkling song. It’s the only thing from her past that survived the Stormer’s tornado—not counting me.

Given the perfect shine on the chimes and the way they’re kept away from the elements—safe, protected—it’s obvious which means more.

My eyes burn, but the snub isn’t what upsets me. It’s seeing the chimes trapped inside. Never to sing again.

My mother clears her throat and I force myself to look at her, hating that she caught me staring.

“What was he doing with another girl in the first place?” she asks. “Vane should be so madly in love with you he’d never so much as think of wasting time on anyone else—especially a groundling.”

“How? I wasn’t allowed to talk to him until his mind broke through, and I tried not to let him see me.”

My mother sighs. “And that was your mistake. You’re a beautiful girl, Audra. You should be able to turn boys to mush with a simple smile, and use that to your advantage.”