by Cora Carmack
No. He couldn’t think about possible outcomes. He could not comprehend the possibility of life without her, though he feared he might not be given a choice. He gritted his teeth and ran harder. She slid into unconsciousness, her trembling body going still.
“No, no, no!” He pushed his legs faster until all the pain disappeared and only desperation remained.
The other hunters were gathered just outside the village’s wall; no doubt they had been on their way to fight the storm. He groaned with relief at the sight of them. His knees gave out moments before he reached their position, slamming hard into the dirt. He pitched forward, but did his best to keep Roar up until he could ease her onto the ground.
“DUKE!” he yelled, his voice swallowed by desperation. “Help her!”
The old man moved faster than Locke had seen him run in years. As soon as he was close, the whole story began rattling out of Locke’s mouth. He didn’t have all the pieces. He’d been unconscious for a time. But Duke didn’t even appear to be listening. As he knelt on Roar’s other side, the old man’s gaze was riveted to the skyfire flashes in her chest. Locke reached out, folding the torn pieces of her shirt to cover all but the upper half of the streaking lights.
“I had the storm,” Locke growled. “I had it. But she pushed me away. Why did she push me away?”
“To the point, boy! How did she get like this?”
“She touched the heart. She took it, faster than I’ve ever seen. She shoved her hand into the light, and it was so bright I had to look away. Then the storm was just gone and she was inconsolable, screaming in pain … like she was burning inside.”
Tentatively, Duke touched her skin where the light forked below it. His hand shook, as if he expected it to be hot. But it wasn’t. Locke knew. He’d touched it himself, and her skin felt normal. No cuts. No heat. No scars.
“What else?” Duke snapped, feeling for her pulse, touching her forehead, lifting her closed eyelids. Jinx held up a skyfire lantern to cast light over them. For the first time, Locke’s eyes fixed on something besides Roar’s anguished face and the bizarre phenomenon of her heart.
Her hair … it was white. Pale, bright white. Like the light in her chest.
“What else, Locke? Think. Did you see anything? Hear anything?”
Locke felt numb. His body was cold and shaking, and he was fairly certain he was going into shock. “Called it,” he mumbled. “She—she said she called it.”
“That’s not possible,” Jinx said. “Not even the strongest Stormlings can summon a storm. Only control those that already exist.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Locke snapped. “But … but how is any of this possible? There should have been a stone. But there wasn’t. There was nothing left of the storm that I could find except that.” He punctuated his words with gesture toward Roar’s chest.
Jinx didn’t reply. No one did. They only stared, as baffled and terrified as he was.
“Your welcome in Toleme is revoked. You all need to leave. Now.”
The hard voice came from the direction of the town, and the other hunters parted to reveal Minister Vareeth. His expression was curled into a sneer, and his eyes flashed with fear and loathing when they fell upon Roar.
“I want you out of my town. Now. We want nothing to do with her kind.”
“Her kind?” Locke asked.
“I did not believe. I heard the whispers. The rumors from scourged who tried to seek refuge here. I thought it fearmongering from the Stormlings. Thought they were trying to lure people from the wilds to seek shelter in the cities.”
“What rumors?” Locke demanded, launching to his feet and surging toward the man.
Ransom caught him, holding him back.
“The Stormlord. She is like him,” the minister said. “Varatempia.”
“Vara what?”
“It’s Vyhodin,” Sly said, stepping up to stand between Locke and the minister. “It means … ‘with a heart of storms.’ But I’ve only ever heard it as an exaggeration. For unruly children with bad tempers.”
“Go!” the minister yelled. “If I were not a man of faith, I’d have you all hanged for the peace of mind of my people. If you do not leave now, I might reconsider.”
“We can’t go without our things,” Bait snarled. “Our carriage. Our horses.”
“Then get them and go. But she stays here. She will not taint our Sacred town again.”
Locke broke free from Ransom and charged toward the minister. “Who is this Stormlord you speak of? Why do you fear him?” He took hold of the man’s shirt, dragging him up onto his toes, even as Ransom appeared again, trying to haul him back. “Who is he?” Locke growled.
“He is destruction. The very soul of death. He’s the worst perversion of magic, the prophesized end of days. And like her, storms beat beneath his chest.”
Ransom finally succeeded in pulling Locke away, and he went, snarling. “Superstitious garbage. We saved your pathetic town. And you would put us out in the night because of old religious texts that haven’t been relevant for centuries? What kind of coward are you? You would let your fear of the imaginary make you cruel to real people, flesh and blood!”
“It is not fiction. The Stormlord lives. He has already destroyed the city for which you are named.”
“Wh-what?” Locke stumbled, fatigue raking down his spine. “I don’t understand. Locke—”
“Swallowed up by the sea,” the minister growled. “Battered and drowned until not one brick lay upon another. Total destruction. And I’ll not have my home be next.”
Sometimes we must make answers where there are none.
—The Tale of Lord Finneus Wolfram
22
She’ll wake today, Locke told himself. She had to. He did not think he could survive another night with her unconscious. It was not abnormal for those who survived a skyfire strike to fall into an unrelenting sleep. But while Roar had not woken, she whimpered and gasped and moaned in pain, the skyfire flash in her chest speeding up when she did. He felt so helpless, so afraid—both emotions he had not felt since his childhood.
Two nights prior they had left Toleme in the dark and traveled through the night to reach Taraanar. And now as he and Jinx wove their way through a crowded market—this one selling fine silks and pottery and spices, he unconsciously reached for his supply harness for what must have been the dozenth time, only to come up empty. He had been forced to leave everything that could be considered dangerous magic back at their camp for this visit.
Stall owners shouted at them as they passed, shoving various wares in their faces, promising the best prices in the whole market. Jinx looked back at him, her normally distinctive hair covered by a scarf. “Remember,” she said, “be nice. We need her to help us. Do not lose your temper.”
Locke grunted in response. Perhaps he had been a little irritable over the last few days, but what was he expected to be when Roar still lay unconscious in the Rock? He’d had to leave her to come into the city. They’d not been able to bribe their way in on such short notice, and it was much easier to sneak two people inside than an entire crew and a hulking metal carriage.
They turned down the far row of the market, and took a hidden set of stairs down into an abandoned tunnel that used to be part of an aqueduct system and now was home to Taraanar’s storm market. They walked for a while in the dark, their footsteps echoing in the enclosed space. Then eventually, they began to pass stalls. The tunnel was not wide enough to have more than one lane of stalls and the walkway, so they wound their way through the market tunnel for nearly a bell. They passed old acquaintances and familiar bits of magic, but they did not stop to visit. They kept walking until they finally came upon an enclosed market stall curtained by beads and silk fabrics with a sign that read DIVINER.
Jinx said the woman inside was one of the oldest and wisest witches in existence, but it looked more like they had stumbled upon a cheap soothsayer scam. The woman had lived for a time in the Sahrain mountains
near where Jinx grew up, and Jinx’s mother had brought her to the witch when she was young and her magic was out of control. Jinx would not say what the woman had divined, only that she could, and her ability was most definitely real.
His body tensed as Jinx rang a bell outside the curtained stall. No one answered. His heart began to sink, stinging as if it sank into acid. Jinx went to ring the bell again and the curtain parted. He could see nothing inside, but when Jinx ducked past the curtain, he did not hesitate to follow. The curtain dropped back into place, settling them all into darkness. A cold sensation ran over the back of his neck, and he shivered.
A candle lit out of nowhere in front of them, a small golden glow in the still, dark space. Then dozens more followed, blazing to life all at once. The witch sat at a table, watching them.
He had expected her to be old and decrepit. She was the former, but far from the latter. Her silvery hair hung long and straight like her posture. Her dark face was smooth, and the only wrinkles he spied were a few at her neck and across the backs of her hands. Her eyes were an eerie, washed-out blue.
“Jezamine,” the woman said. “It has been some time.”
Her voice crawled over his skin, and it felt as if it clung to him, learned him. He fought off a shiver. Jezamine. It had been a long time since he’d heard someone call Jinx that.
“Hello, Avira. It’s good to see you.”
The old woman laughed. “Is it? This one doesn’t look particularly happy about it,” she said, jerking a thumb in Locke’s direction. He straightened his posture and cleared his expression as best he could in his unsettled state.
“My name is Locke,” he said. “And I’m very pleased to meet you.”
Her lips quirked, revealing a few more wrinkles. “Oh, I know. The spirits have been quite keen to tell me about you. You look as distraught as they said.” He stiffened. “Jinx did not tell you I was a spirit witch?”
“I told him,” Jinx said. “You’ve spooked him is all.”
Avira surveyed him, her eyes frighteningly intense. When they weren’t piercing through him, they flicked around his head, as if glancing at something he couldn’t see. He had the sensation of something crawling along the back of his neck, and he had to fight not to swat at the imagined things around him.
“You must learn to find your feet even among things that unsettle you, young hunter. For far more unsettling things await you.”
Cold swept through his chest. If that was prediction, he did not like it. But Avira said nothing else. She only turned toward Jinx and said, “Sit. Tell me your purpose.”
Jinx sat at the table before the spirit witch, and Locke stood behind her. On the table was a sample of each of the elements—the flame from the candle, bowls of water and sand, and what he recognized as the magic of a windstorm. The latter was in a bottle that had been uncorked, but somehow the magic remained inside instead of spilling out.
He crossed his hands over his chest and listened as Jinx told Avira about Roar’s peculiarities and the way she had taken down the skyfire storm. Locke watched the witch’s face, searching for any sign of recognition or emotion, but the woman was unreadable. Except for the moments when her eyes flicked away from Jinx to stare at the open air, as if someone else were there, filling in gaps of the story.
When Jinx finished recounting the story in its entirety, she said, “It would take us several weeks to reach Locke to confirm the minister’s story. Instead, we thought you could see for us. And if you’re willing, we hoped you could take a look at Roar. She still has not woken and—”
“I do not need to see the girl. She will wake when she’s ready.”
Locke lurched forward. “She will wake, though?” There was desperation in his voice that he knew he should hide. He knew better than to show his emotions to someone he wasn’t sure he could trust, someone who could easily manipulate him.
“My abilities do not work that way, hunter. I see actions, cause and effect. My ability to see and understand spirit does not extend to the living. She will wake. That’s all I can say. And when she does, it will be to a different life than all the ones she led before.”
Jinx asked, “Have you heard any news of Locke? Or seen anything in your visions?”
“Aye, the minister spoke the truth. The city by the sea is no more.”
Locke waited to feel something. Remorse or nostalgia or anything. He knew there had likely been tremendous loss of life. But he could not make himself feel sorrow for that place. The city had been beautiful, of that there was no doubt. But like too many beautiful things, it had rotted on the inside.
A Locke prince had been in Pavan to marry their princess, so at least part of the royal line survived. He wished they’d all been destroyed. Perhaps he should have felt guilty for that, but he could not bring himself to do that either. That kingdom was tainted, and the world was better off with it gone.
“What about this Stormlord?” he asked. “Tell me it’s superstitious nonsense.”
“I cannot tell you that.”
“But you cannot tell me if he is real?”
“I can only tell you that every spirit I send to search for him never returns. Your inferences here are as good as mine.”
He met the witch’s gaze again. Her eyes were a blue so light that they almost looked illuminated, and he felt that tickle on the back of his neck. This time he could not stop himself from reaching back with a hand and rubbing at the spot that felt colder than the rest of his skin.
“You should go,” the woman said, settling back into the worn, cushioned chair on which she sat.
Jinx stood, crossing toward her. “Avira, please. Grant us a little more time. There’s so much we don’t know. About Roar’s abilities, whether or not she truly did call that storm.”
“She can tell you herself.”
Locke lost his patience then. He had let his guard down, and his anger slipped past the tight leash he had kept it on for days. “No, she can’t. Something is wrong with her. She’s sleeping, but I can tell she’s in pain. I know it. That thing in her chest lights up, and she whimpers, and—and—” He fisted his hands in his hair and squeezed his eyes shut tight. “I don’t know how to help her. Tell me how to help her.”
The old woman stood, unfazed by his loss of control. She drifted toward the curtains and pulled them open in a not so subtle suggestion.
“My final advice to you is this: listen. Listen when she speaks and when she doesn’t. Listen when you understand and when you don’t. Listen with an open heart, for a closed heart becomes a cold one if left for too long. That is how you can help her, Kiran Thorne.”
He jerked back, stumbling over his feet as his heart roared within his chest. “What did you call me?”
She waved a hand in front of his eyes, as if she were clearing cobwebs from between them.
“Your head may have forgotten, but your heart has not. Remember that in the future. Now go. She will wake soon.”
* * *
Roar sat on the bank of a small tributary in the Rani Delta. She looked over the unfamiliar land around her—swaying palm trees, tall grasses, and in the distance, sand as far as the eye could see. It was easier to focus on what was around her rather than within her. She was supposed to be washing up, like she had begged to do only a while ago. But her body ached, and her mind was muddled, and inside …
Inside she felt … untethered. As if the strings tying her soul to her body had been cut, and if she did not concentrate, the two might separate completely. As soon as she had woken, there had been so many faces and voices around her, but none was the one she wanted.
Carefully, she removed the only article of clothing she wore—a large tunic that went to her knees and smelled like Locke. Duke had given her a linen towel and a smaller cloth with which to wash. She pulled the larger towel around her shoulders to ward off the chilly winds that came in from the sea and edged forward to the river. She dunked the cloth into the water and scrubbed her skin clean as best she could while sit
ting on the bank.
She heard something crashing through the copse of palm trees behind her. Branches parted, and Locke stepped into view. His face had darkened with exertion, and the hair over his forehead stuck to his skin with sweat. He looked like he’d just run half the world to get to her, and yet from the moment he’d seen her, he hadn’t taken another step. He stood frozen in the shadows of the swaying palms. His eyes dipped down, taking in the towel that covered her. Her skin warmed as his eyes traced over the length of her uncovered legs. Abruptly, he turned away.
“I should have announced myself.” His voice was low, but it carried on the wind, and the familiar cadence of his speech was like an embrace that she had not realized she needed.
She smiled. “Your crashing through the trees was announcement enough.”
His head lowered, and she could see the beginning of a smile. She took a moment to study him while he was turned profile. His harness was missing, but he wore his Stormheart belt. Over his linen shirt was a thick hooded leather jacket in the same style as the one she had bought in Toleme, made to allow easy access to his weapons and supplies. He looked … weary.
“I’ll go. Let you finish, uh … finish.”
He turned back the way he came and she said, “Wait!”
He did. She didn’t know how to put into words the clawing feeling she got in her chest at the thought of him leaving. Duke hadn’t told her where Locke was when she woke, only that he would be back, and that he had barely left her side the previous two days.
Two days. The thought still boggled her mind.
“Roar?” Locke asked, his voice strangled.