Novaya had always feared this day would come. All the time alone in her cell, the enormous effort of keeping her magic in control, the devastating melancholy of having no end in sight, not to mention her long battle with anxiety—it was bound to catch up to her eventually.
That had to be what this was—these voices. There were three of them now. One that did indeed sound exactly like the Aurora from her memories, so much so that it caught her off guard every time she heard it. Nova’s heart broke a little every time she had to remind herself this probably was not real.
The other two voices were unfamiliar, the accents foreign too. She tried to match them to some other voice that she had heard once upon a time, wondering if her mind had pulled it from a memory. That had to be the only explanation for why she would be hearing voices from the solid stone wall of her cell.
It wasn’t as if she had never called out in the middle of the night, hoping that someone outside these four walls would call back. But this … this was too impossible, too good to ever be true.
But every time she convinced herself to block it out, Aurora’s voice would ring out again, telling her to hold on. It may have been impossible, but … she didn’t think she had imagined the shaking of the walls. It had showered dust and dirt on her already charred and ruined bed. Again and again, there were frenzied conversations she could not quite understand, followed up by a firm rumble of the wall.
Maybe it was an earthquake? Some other natural phenomenon, and her traumatized brain was simply weaving imaginary tales to keep her from falling apart. She had always been a girl divided. Her mind was too easily ensnared by worry and guilt and fear—so much so that it betrayed her too often for her to ever trust it. And since her magic had manifested when she was a girl, her body had become her enemy as well. Realistically, she had known those divisions would tear her down eventually. She supposed imprisonment was bound to speed that along.
“Nova? Nova! Can you hear me?”
She almost did not reply. It could not be real. It would hurt too much if she believed, and it wasn’t.
“Oh goddess, what if she’s unconscious? Nova?”
“I-I’m here,” she returned, already regretting it.
“Thank the skies,” the Aurora voice said back. “Listen, we can’t get through the wall.”
And there it was, Nova thought, the beginning of the delusion. This wasn’t a rescue, it was a siege. These voices would take up camp in her head, and she would lose what little control she still had left.
“But we’re coming underneath it, so you need to move back.”
Nova blinked, uncomprehending.
“Did you hear me? Move back from the wall.”
“I hear you,” Nova called back. She was already pressed against the far wall, since the bed had been burned beyond use during one of the prince’s questionings.
She waited and waited. There were no more voices. No more shaking walls or showers of dust. But after a moment, she began to feel something strange—a tingling warmth in the atmosphere around her. Suddenly she no longer felt tired, and the flame that always churned beneath her skin was crackling hot and right at the surface.
The dirt floor of her cell began to vibrate so gently it was almost a hum. Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, a hole began to open up in the middle of her floor, revealing a staircase carved from earth, and the face of an unfamiliar woman. Her face was all brazen angles surrounding wide-set brown eyes. Her hair was shorn on one side, but long on the other, and she wore leather battle gear.
She was … magnificent. All of it was, which only made Nova pinch her arm as if to clear a dream. But the vision didn’t disappear, it expanded. From behind the mystery warrior woman, a blond head appeared and Nova gasped, her eyes immediately filling with tears before she could even catch sight of Aurora’s face. But that hair. No one had that color hair but Aurora Pavan.
“I hear you are long past due for a rescue.” The words came from the woman in front, and they only made Nova cry harder.
“This is terribly rude, but I am going to have to ask you to save that crying for when I’m not holding up an entire wall with my magic. Think you can slide forward for me? Once you reach the steps, you can move past me to Aurora, and we’ll get you out of here as fast as possible.”
Somehow, Nova listened. She stifled her tears, and scooted herself across the floor to the opening that had not been there a few moments ago. A part of her was waiting to find it all an illusion still, but as she drew nearer, her foot went into the hole and landed firmly on the top step.
“Good. Keep coming.”
Her legs shook like a newborn colt’s, but Nova pushed herself up enough to walk the rest instead of slide. That tingling warmth from earlier surrounded her as soon as she entered the tunnel, and when the flame inside her answered again, Nova remembered the woman’s last words.
Holding a wall up with magic.
No storm magic she had ever heard of could do that, which meant that this, that the warrior woman had … earth magic?
The next thing Nova knew, she had been seized in a tight grip, pulled hard into a hug that was the closest contact she had had in months. She froze, scrunching up her face and preparing to lock down her magic with all her might, but … the need never rose. It was there, present and close to the surface, but it didn’t ache to be free the way it did when others touched her. After a few long moments to be certain, Nova lifted her arms and returned Aurora’s hug, relieved to finally know her best friend was alive.
That was when all hell broke loose.
Nova pulled back with a gasp as something between her and Aurora became sizzling hot, even by her standards.
Aurora’s familiar face contorted with an emotion she didn’t know—terror, pain, or something worse. Her friend let out a low agonized groan, and at the same time the entire world seemed to shake, the passageway around them raining down dirt and rocks. The soft touch of Aurora’s hands on Nova’s arms became tighter and tighter, nails digging in until Nova could feel the skin break.
It was like something out of a nightmare, worse because not even Nova’s traitorous mind could ever dream up something this cruel. She yelped and squirmed, trying to get free from her friend’s grasp, but the hold was too tight.
Storm sirens blared outside, but Nova would have known a storm approached from the howl of the wind alone; it sounded like a monster. As if in reaction to the building storm, Aurora’s grip grew painfully fierce. In Nova’s panic, a burst of flame rose up inside, ready to rescue her, and Nova cried out louder in response, not sure how long she would be able to hold her instincts back.
A girl she had not seen before with short curly hair and dark skin appeared out of nowhere, pressing one hand to each side of Aurora’s head and commanding, “Your shields, Aurora.”
The princess squeezed her eyes shut, and breathed, “I’m trying.”
The other girl continued, “Separate your soul. Now. You know what is you, and what is not. Separate. Make space. And enforce your shields.”
Nova had no idea what was happening, but after a few moments, Aurora’s grip did ease enough that Nova could break away. The warrior woman was there to catch her as soon as she stumbled back.
“Easy, there. Breathe.” Nova tried to do what she was saying, but her anxiety was in control now. Her heartbeat was loud in her ears, her skin clammy, and her vision blotted with dark spots. “You are safe. I promise. I promise.”
Other words were said, but Novaya did not hear them. Her eyes were fixed on her best friend, watching the look of fury fade from her eyes and confusion and shame take its place. Goddess, she knew that look. She had worn it so many times herself.
Aurora met her eyes and said, “I’m sorry.” But Nova could only read the words on her lips because the sound was lost to another rumbling crash as the entire palace shook again.
Aurora stood, somehow still regal despite the dirt and dread that covered her. “It’s the Stormlord. He’s attacking the palace. We need to get out before it’s too late.”
It was not until Nova felt a gentle push at her back, urging her forward, that she realized the warrior had been touching her this entire time, and not once had her magic risen in response.
Skies, they were lucky. Kiran and the rest of the infiltration crew hadn’t met resistance until they had been almost completely out of the palace, and even then they’d had the numbers. The fighting had been minimal, just long enough to gain the advantageous position, then Kiran lobbed another jar of fog magic, and they made a run for it.
The palace gate was closed, but they were prepared for that. They no longer needed stealth, only speed. So they hurled a grappling hook over the wall and made quick work climbing over and lifting up their cargo.
The fog they’d left to consume the palace entrance bought them time. Anyone who came that way to look for them would be ensnared for some time. But the sooner they disappeared, the better. Zephyr had been the first over, and her lieutenant, Raquim, was to be the last. When only he, Kiran, and Ransom remained, they were caught off guard by the sudden approach of a figure at full sprint.
Raquim was quick to pull his weapon, but Ransom waved him off.
“He is one of ours.”
It was Bait who approached, winded and with his red hair plastered to his face by sweat or rain. He’d been assigned as lookout, and should have already been on the other side of the wall by now.
“What is it?” Kiran asked.
Bait winced, and looked at Ransom instead when he answered.
“After you lot left, Sly noticed something.”
“Noticed what?” Kiran asked.
Again, Bait kept his eyes fixed on Ransom, avoiding Kiran. “Jinx and Roar did not return to headquarters after they completed their part. Instead, they entered the palace grounds.”
“They did what?” Kiran growled.
“Sly followed them,” Bait rushed to reply. “To make sure they did not run into any harm, but, uh, she still has not returned. None of them have.”
Kiran’s vision tunneled until he could see little more than the worried and fearful expression on the novie’s face. His world was so narrowed, his mind so focused on the idea of Aurora and Jinx and Sly, and all the things that could have befallen them, that he did not notice when the air changed, when the pressure dropped, and the world went quiet.
It wasn’t until everything burst wide open into color and light and pain that his hunter instincts kicked in and he realized what was happening.
A hole had torn open in the sky and flame rained down in enormous torrents, changing everything in an instant. The first ember hit his forearm, burning through several layers of skin before he batted it away, earning another scorching wound on his hand. The next skated by his face, searing his cheek on its way down.
He could not seem to think in the right order. He should do something about the storm, about the immediate threat, but his mind was caught up over the threat to Aurora. Ransom had to pull the firestorm powder from his utility belt for him and hold it directly in front of his face before Kiran even began to think rationally. He pulled the cork and emptied the powder on his tongue, trying not to think of how many of their resources they had depleted in this one mission alone. That was far from the most important thing right now. The next ember that hit him hurt, but didn’t burn, and that sharpened his focus.
He looked to his left to see that Raquim was already gone, the rope too. No matter; there was no way Kiran was leaving without the rest of his crew.
“Where did they go?”
They followed Bait at a sprint to the vine that Jinx had grown up to the queen’s balcony, but it had already burned down to ash in the ensuing firestorm. Parts of the palace were burning too, and no one seemed to be doing anything to fight the storm.
Kiran thought of the fog storms they’d left scattered around the palace. They might have grown by now to fill even more space, incapacitating even more people. What if they had unknowingly left the palace, and the entire city of Pavan, vulnerable to attack?
That, he knew, was something for which Aurora would never forgive him. So even though it went against his every instinct, even though it physically hurt him not to go after her, he turned and faced the sky instead.
“New plan,” he declared. “We deal with this, then we find our girls.”
Kiran was the only one among them with a firestorm heart, so he pulled that from his belt. But the other two had their own ways of helping.
“I’ll work on the flames,” Ransom said, pulling a jar of rainstorm magic from his belt. Kiran noticed that Ransom too was looking low on supplies.
Bait pulled his lone Stormheart from his belt and said, “Distraction duty. I’m on it.”
Ransom and Bait timed their actions perfectly so that the appearance of the thunderstorm from Ransom’s jar might be confused for the Stormheart Bait was infusing with his magic, tricking the storm into thinking another real tempest was in its midst. The first downpour met the flames with a loud sizzle, smoke filling the sky until it was hard to tell what was storm and what was smoke.
Kiran chose that moment to attack, pushing his energy through the Stormheart he held and at the churning, rotating beast overhead. He managed to break up the formation, catching it by surprise, but then an awful howling sound came on the wind, and the rotation snapped right back, faster this time, pushing lower to the ground, closer to the palace.
The wind changed again, this time at his back; he felt a sharp updraft, matched by the rising heat from the flames, and his ears filled with a loud, guttural rumble that shook the ground beneath his feet. He looked up and backward just in time to see a funnel cloud dipping lower and lower before tearing a chunk away from the side of the famed golden-domed roof of the palace.
Bleeding skies. This was it. This wasn’t just a single storm. This was one of the onslaughts of multiple tempests that could not be natural. It was happening. The Stormlord was coming for Pavan, and too many people he cared about were still inside.
Four women from different worlds crawled out of the secret tunnel, and Aurora breathed out in relief to finally be on the ground floor. The tunnel had shook and shifted around them every step of the way, and though none of them had ever spoken a word, she knew they all had feared its eventual collapse.
Now that they stood in the light, Aurora could not keep her eyes off Nova. Her friend had lost weight; her once-round cheeks had unnatural hollows in the middle, matched by sunken skin beneath her eyes. Her steps remained unsteady, even once they stood on flat ground.
Captivity’s mark was clear on her, and Aurora wanted to reach out in comfort, in aid, but she couldn’t. Not after what she had let happen down in the tunnel. Not with the way another soul was trailing her own at the moment, as if waiting for a momentary lapse in her strength.
It should not worry her that no barrier had been thrown up to guard against the storm yet. What did she care for Cassius Locke? She meant to bring him to justice in the end. But time and again over the last week, no matter how many times a storm broke through, it had never been long before she felt his icy barriers go up, before his fighting gave her a much-needed reprieve.
But there was no barrier now. Nothing to stop whatever storm this violent soul controlled, and she feared what they would find if, no, when they made it outside the palace. They hastily crossed through the Hall of the Ancestors and the servant’s hall, but when they swung the next door open, Jinx slammed the door before the thick cloud on the other side could leech inside.
“Fog,” Sly was the first to supply. They all knew it was part of the infiltration’s plan. But none of them had the supplies to walk through it unharmed, as they were all supposed to be out of harm’s way.
Aurora did not have time for this. They still had to get back to her mother. This task had seemed so … well, not simple, but direct when they had begun. But the problems just kept unspooling further and further until she lost all sense of the thread.
She had to stay focused. She said, “We either need to find a way to neutralize the fog, or we need an alternate route.” The fog outside the door was collected magic, and thus had no soul for her to influence. She turned to her fellow hunters. “Either of you happen to have any fog Stormheart on you?” They both shook their heads.
Sly reached for something on her belt and slid it free. She held out her palm, revealing a gray cylindrical stone.
“Wind?” Aurora asked.
“If we can’t negate it, we move it,” Sly said.
“And do you have wind magic on hand?”
“No, but you do.”
Aurora’s eyes skipped to Nova, who looked too exhausted to have caught the hunter’s meaning. And even if she had, Aurora could hardly insist on holding back secrets from her friend, not after all she had been through. If there was a way her abilities could get them through this, she would do it.
She held out a hand, and Sly slapped the Stormheart against her palm. As always, she did not feel the call other Stormlings felt. She could sense no connection to the defeated storm it came from, nor would it enable her to channel the natural magic that other Stormlings manifested as children. Those gifts had never come for her. But she knew now that did not mean she could not utilize it for magic of a different kind.
She took a deep breath. Then another. She looked to Jinx and Sly and said, “I have to lower my shields. I’ll do my best to keep the tempest at bay, but if it should take me—”
“I have a little powdered Rezna’s rest left if you go full assassin on us.” Jinx shrugged nonchalantly, as if having to incapacitate a friend was simply part of her normal day. “But try not to go full Rage Roar. We’ve already got one unconscious body to carry; two would make things very difficult.”
“I will do my best.”
Sly opened her mouth as if to say something, but then closed it and simply nodded.
“What’s happening?” Nova asked.
“The way out is blocked, but I’m going to try something. It … I might have a reaction like I did before, when I squeezed your arms. I’m sorry for that, by the way. I promise, I will explain everything later when there is time.”
Aurora hated the fearful expression on her friend’s face, but Nova nodded all the same, loyal despite her misgivings.
“Why don’t Nova and I stand back to be safe?” Jinx offered. She took a pouch from her belt and held it out to Sly. “Sly can be your second. She brought you around pretty fast down in the tunnel.” Jinx shifted her focus to the other hunter and added, “If she becomes more than you can handle, just a tiny pinch of powder is all she needs to breathe in to be subdued. Any more and she’ll be out for the night.”
After a bit of shuffling, they were all in position, and it was just a matter of Aurora dropping her walls enough to choose a soul to summon a storm. It was not something she had mastered by any means, but the process was basic enough. It reminded her a bit of threading a needle. Aurora could feel spirits around her always, some distant and meandering, some close and suffocating. She merely had to choose one and pull it through the Stormheart she held in her hands, and the soul took on the life of that storm.
It was simple.
“Very, very simple,” she mumbled to herself, and then slowly began to lower the walls she’d erected between her own spirit and the world around her. She imagined taking away one stone, only one, letting in just a sliver of the outside.
Even that small opening seemed like a floodgate, filling her mind with noise and feeling and sensation that was not her own. It felt like an invasion, foreign and overpowering, and her instinct was to try to claw it away like a spider’s web she’d walked through unsuspectingly. Instead, she held still, trying to adjust. The world outside was loud and unfocused and chaotic, and it enflamed her own thoughts until they too were loud, competing as if to say, I still exist.
“Don’t panic,” Sly said, her voice quiet and commanding next to Aurora. “You will only waste your energy.”
She was right. Aurora could not fight her own mind in addition to the world outside. Somehow, she had to trust—that she could do this, that she would find her way back. She inhaled, imagining the breath pushing all her own thoughts deeper inside her, safe and separate. Then on the exhale, she focused on that opening and took down a second stone, widening her exposure.
The storm’s consciousness rolled over her, and she felt it like a disease—thick and cloying and searching for its next victim. The soul was old—so much so that there was little humanity left in it. No memories, no yearning ache from its former life. She wondered if souls like this one even remembered why they still clung to this world, or if they only held on out of habit and hate.
She pushed it aside and tried to search for another soul, for one not so tainted, one that would help them and submit to her control without causing any harm. She closed her eyes and let the pull she felt inside drift where it wanted to go, but it was hard to navigate the chaos of the living souls outside the walls who were filled with desperation and panic and fear.
Aurora pulled back and tried to start smaller. In her immediate vicinity, she felt the lively presence of her friends, the unique buzz of each of their spirits. Beyond that, past the closed door, she found more living souls, though these were more subdued—caught in the fog’s snare, she guessed. She reached farther, searching for a gentle spirit mingling with the earth or the air, but they all had scattered in the presence of the monster ruling the skies.
When she searched as far as she could without losing touch with herself, she decided to risk opening herself up more. She began lowering her defenses, stone by stone, until she could reach out in every direction.
I need help, she thought. Pavan needs help. Please, if you’re willing, come.
She felt a few answering nudges, tentative and wary. She sent out feelings of warmth and compassion, and a plea for courage. It was such a cruel irony how much the spirits she touched differed. Malicious and power-hungry souls gravitated toward storms naturally. They often felt they were owed something by the world they’d once lived in, and they took that payment in destruction. And the rest—they were soft, more than vulnerable, like one might expect when a person’s truest self is shoved into the harsh world without even skin and bones for armor. It was these souls she had to coax and comfort. While they had not been able to let go of their old lives enough to move on, they had done their best to adjust, settling into the seams of nature where life and death were constant and less complicated.
Aurora thought of her magic like a song—soft and soothing—and she poured it out for those souls, asking for their aid. She found one, huddled low in the earth, avoiding the storms overhead. It sent her images of fire and chaos, and she sucked in a breath.
A firestorm wreaked havoc outside. No wonder the city was in such turmoil.
She promised the spirit shelter and guidance and urged it toward her. It came, but slowly. This soul was no fighter, not like the one that inhabited the firestorm. But she did not need it to fight, she could do that. She only needed it to submit.
She had it out of the earth and almost to the palace when suddenly another soul appeared. This one came from somewhere up above, as if out of nowhere. It moved fast and needed no cajoling from her. In her surprise, she released the other soul, which immediately scurried back to its hiding spot, so she faced the newcomer in her mind’s eye.
This soul was … different. Bold, eager, but not at all childish like the skyfire storm she’d encountered in the Sangsorra desert. This soul projected a sense of duty, and she wondered if he or she had been a soldier once upon a time.
You are here to help? she sent the thought its way.
It did not send anything back, no images or words; it only rushed closer, crowding her space.
All right, then. Thank you. I promise to release you as soon as I’ve cleared the fog.
Again, it pushed closer, a sense of impatience filling her, the first real communication she had received. Definitely a soldier, she thought.
Aurora lifted up the wind Stormheart, cradling it between both her palms, then with an indrawn breath, she took hold of the spirit before her and simply drew it through the heart.
Aurora had been going for a gentle breeze, but this spirit was so strong that she received a gust instead. It blew the heavy wooden door in front of her wide open before she even had the chance to gather her thoughts.
The others did not seem to mind the hurry. They rushed up behind her, and in moments the four of them were out of the door and into the open hall.
Aurora focused, directing the wind at the heavy clouds of fog that hugged the walls ahead of them, and the thick white masses rolled back like waves under the assault.
Once the hallway was clear, the soul returned, swirling around her with delight and approval. The wind seemed to move through her, brushing away the fear and lifting up her spirits. The air tugged at her clothes and her hood, ruffling through her hair. She could not resist the urge to join the whirlwind in a spin. It felt almost like they were dancing.
“How is she doing that?” she heard Nova ask Jinx, drawing her back to the moment.
Neither of them ever got the chance to answer because a bellowing growl mixed with a nightmarish shriek pierced the air. Aurora winced and covered her ears moments before something cracked and crunched, and that sound that had seemed too loud before became deafening.
The next moments unfolded faster than she could process.Things began falling around them—plaster and wood and stone—and all of it covered with fire. She tilted her head back to see what was happening, but then a gale of wind seemed to wrap around her middle and haul her backward, sending her toppling onto her backside and sliding only a few paces away from the fiery beam that crashed down right in the spot where she had been standing.
Aurora heard screaming and looked up to see Nova and Jinx on the other side of the flames. Sly had been blown backward by the same gust of wind as she, leaving their group separated. Aurora dragged herself to her feet, her back aching from her collision with the ground. As soon as she was standing, she nearly toppled again as she felt the magnitude of two giant storms roiling in the sky overhead.
It was a twister that had torn open the top of the dome, and it had sucked some of the firestorm’s embers into its rotation, hurling them with frightening force inside the palace walls.
Part of Nova’s threadbare cloak had caught fire, and Jinx was trying to stamp it out with her bare hands while Nova shoved her away, yelling something that Aurora could not hear. In fact, she was struggling to hear almost everything around her because the souls above had taken to her mental walls like battering rams, and she felt like she might lose the contents of her stomach. She dug her nails into her temples until the point of pain and groaned.
Sly appeared at her elbow, trying to force her hands away from her face, but the pain was the only thing keeping her sharp at the moment, keeping her in control.
Then, a third storm arrived. Aurora did not know from where or what kind, only that it was swift and sadistic, and it was going to break her. She wouldn’t last. She looked to Sly, gasping. “Do you—do—Rezna’s—do you have it?”
The hunter’s face fell and she shook her head. “I don’t. I dropped it when the beam fell. I don’t know where it is now.”
Aurora smashed her lips together hard and screamed into her closed mouth, willing herself to hold out.
Sly took hold of her shoulders and in the most soothing tone Aurora had ever heard from the girl, she coached, “Focus less on them, on keeping them out. Instead, direct all your energy at knowing the boundaries of your own soul. Know yourself, know you are incorruptible. Be so bright that they cannot even look upon you, let alone touch your spirit.”
Aurora ached from soul to skin and back again. “I am not sure I know how.”
“You have to.”
So that’s what Aurora did. She stopped trying to construct a wall that had already crumbled. She stopped desperately shoving and pushing at the intrusions she felt and turned inward instead. She did not know what the boundaries of herself were, her journey through the wilds had made that much evident, but she tried anyway. She focused on her love for her mother and for Nova and Jinx and Sly too. She thought of her memories in this palace, good and bad. She thought of her brother, who had been so brave and bold. And even though it hurt, she thought of Kiran, and the confidence she had gained in being loved by him. Aurora might not know everything she was, but she knew what she was not.
She was not going to let these storms take control from her, not when she still had a mission to complete. She was not going to leave this city vulnerable and broken and caught up in a war that was not theirs. And she was not afraid to do whatever it took.
Ever so slowly, Aurora felt herself drawing back from the brink. Her bunched muscles loosened, the fingers she had gripped tightly about her head fell away, and she opened watery eyes to take in the hallway around her.
The world was still a tumult of fire and fear, but she was not losing herself, not today, not now. She approached the beam that blocked her from Jinx and Nova to see that their situation had only worsened during her temporary distraction. Nova’s clothing was no longer alight, but now they were surrounded by four soldiers in blue Locke uniforms, soldiers she had probably freed from the grasp of the fog storm only minutes before.
She turned to Sly. “Rainstorm? Do you have any? Heart or magic, I’ll take either. We have to get to them.”
Before she could answer, four more soldiers arrived, doubling their number. “Hurry,” Aurora demanded. Impatient, she reached for the windstorm she’d had before. It would not put out the flame blocking their path, but perhaps she could redirect the fire just long enough that they could leap over.
Once again, Sly tugged on her elbow. “We can’t. We need to go while we still can.”
“What? And leave them? No. I’m not leaving either one of them.”
Aurora turned and charged for the beam, but Sly latched on and pulled her back hard. Sly was a handspan shorter, and a good deal lighter, but somehow she continued muscling Aurora backward no matter how hard she fought. And it only took a few moments for Aurora to expend what little energy she had left.
For the briefest moment, Aurora’s eyes met Jinx’s through the leaping flames before the witch spun, executing a complicated move to block an oncoming soldier with one blade while swiping at another to keep him back.
Aurora thought she heard her shout, “Don’t be stupid, novie!” but she could not be certain because Jinx did not meet her eyes again. She was too busy holding off attackers.
“Please no, no. This is not how this is supposed to happen. We cannot leave them,” Aurora begged.
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you went on a rescue mission without a plan.”
A sob caught and burst in Aurora’s throat. How did she always do everything wrong? No matter her intentions, no matter that she wanted to make things better, she only seemed to make them worse.
“Enough,” Sly snapped, whirling Aurora around a corner and slamming her none too gently against a wall, not a hint of a comfort in her tone. “Life happens how it happens, and you either move with the maelstrom or die wallowing about the change in the winds. You still have your mother to save. Not to mention ourselves. This whole place could come down if those storms aren’t handled soon.”
Aurora and Sly had never been friends exactly. The hunter had mistrusted her from the moment they met, rightly, Aurora supposed. Sly had seen through her persona as Roar and knew that it had not been the whole truth.
Truth, she realized, was the only thing Sly dealt in. And it was what she needed to hear in that moment. They would get her mother, then maybe in the chaos of the storms there would still be time to go back for Nova and Jinx. Maybe she could still make this right.
Maybe.
Maybe.
With renewed determination, the two traversed through the palace and back to the storm shelter beneath the royal wing. Aurora could feel the skyfire storm in her chest sending frantic bolts of energy from her fingertips to her toes as they neared the room where she’d left her mother. She held her breath as she pushed open the door, and relief blazed from her every pore when she saw her mother’s prone form still laid across that tiny bed.
Goddess, so much had gone wrong this day, but this was still something. She would get her mother free of these people, and she would make certain the queen woke. She had to. Because Aurora did not know if she was capable of being what Pavan needed right now.
Aurora leaned over her mother, pressing their foreheads together for just a moment before she pulled the older woman up into a sitting position. Almost simultaneously, she felt a sudden release of pressure from her mental shields, a dark weight dissipated.
“The firestorm is down,” she told Sly.
Aurora still had not felt Cassius’s familiar barrier go up, so someone else must have dealt with the fiery beast. A vision of Kiran appeared in her mind, and she sent up a silent hope for his safety.
The firestorm’s defeat would make their escape less dangerous. She had been trying not to think of how she would carry her mother from the palace in the midst of the raging tempests outside without taking them all directly to their deaths. But at the same time … if the storms were being controlled, she had far less chance of getting back to Jinx and Nova.
But maybe they had got out on their own. Jinx was a warrior, an earth witch, one of the strongest people Aurora had ever known. Maybe.
The trek up the secret passageway to the royal wing was far more difficult than the way down had been. The incline was steep, and the queen’s unconscious form hung heavy between Aurora and Sly, whose differing heights made the job even more challenging. Normally Aurora would have taken the majority of the weight, but the day had begun to take its toll on her. Her feet felt like lead as she forced them up and up the path, and the mental and physical exhaustion had begun to blur into one heavy weight that lay atop everything else, slowing her down.
It did not even matter when she felt the second storm unravel, and then the third. The damage was already done. She was beyond depleted, and the only thing she knew to do was put one foot in front of the other again and again.
She would have kept walking right out of the passageway and into the open hallway if Sly had not stopped her, and held a finger to her lips.
There were voices in the royal wing. And as soon as she began paying attention, her skin broke out in bumps at the familiar deep voice she heard just a few steps away.
“No,” Cassius Locke snapped. “Don’t kill either of them. I want to question them. And don’t put them in the dungeon either, not until we know how they got the girl out before. Go. I’ll follow shortly. I want to be the first to speak to them.”
Aurora locked eyes with Sly and her stomach sank. She heard the heavy footsteps of the departing soldier, but nearby a door opened and closed quickly. She took the chance to undo the latch and slide open the wooden door of the passageway, and she curled her fingers carefully around the tapestry that hid their position.
A quick peek revealed an empty hallway, but only moments later the door to what had been her private rooms for eighteen years opened sharply, and the tall, dark form of Cassius Locke emerged. His hair was longer than the last time she saw him, less regal, edging on unkempt. He wore all black, just like she had remembered, but patches of his tunic had been singed away, revealing reddened, burned skin. His hard face was smeared with ash, but his eyes were set with determination as he closed the door to her rooms and stalked down the hallway.
To interrogate the friends she had left behind.
She released the tapestry as though it had caught flame like so much of the rest of the palace, and clamped her palm over her mouth until her lips ground painfully into her teeth.
When the hallway had grown quiet, Sly said, “We should go.”
Aurora did not have any other answer. She was tired of leading. Clearly, it was not something she did well. So she did as the other hunter said, and they slipped into the hallway and moved quickly into her mother’s room at the end of the hall.
Luckily, it was empty. No waiting soldiers. No unconscious maid.
No Jinx either.
Aurora held up her mother while Sly ducked out to check the balcony and confirm what they feared—their escape route was long burned. Sly came back, and her eyes fixed on the bed.
“The bedclothes will have to do. We can use them to wrap your mother and lower her down.”
Aurora nodded, still feeling numb, but she carried her mother over to begin the process. Sly laid out one linen blanket on the floor, and Aurora carefully positioned her mother on top. Efficiently, Sly rolled the queen onto her side and said, “Pull her knees up. We need her as small as possible.”
Aurora blinked, but did as she was told, swaddling her unconscious mother like a child. In minutes they were ready to try their escape. Aurora would lower Sly down first, then send her mother down next. Together, they carried her mother to the balcony door. As soon as they stepped outside, the smell of ash and rain filled Aurora’s senses. She looked up and saw pillars of smoke rising from the city beyond, and all at once that numbness went away, reality coming back in a sharp slice.
“Wait,” Aurora gasped. “Wait. I have to do something.”
She did not let herself think or worry or fear as she charged back through her mother’s room and to the door. She listened only for a moment before she returned to the hallway, Sly’s quiet objections lost as she closed the door behind her.
The hallway was still empty, which was good. She strode forward until she reached the door that had once been hers, then pushed it open and ducked inside before she could change her mind.
She blinked, taking in the mix of old and new before her. Her books remained, as well as the small love seat where she used to curl up and read, where she had sat beside Cassius as he discussed their impending marriage and decided that she would do whatever it took to make her own future. But other things were different. A large black desk lay in front of her bookshelves, covered in papers and ink and books—some of which she recognized and others she didn’t. There was a burned and bloodied coat slung over a wooden chair—neither of which were hers. There was a rack of weapons in one corner, with two discarded pairs of boots nearby.
Aurora shook her head in disbelief. It was not enough that he had taken her kingdom and drugged her mother, Cassius Locke had moved into her rooms? She had a sudden urge to destroy it all—his, hers, it did not matter anymore—but there was no time for that. Instead, she made for that monstrosity of a desk and grabbed a piece of parchment and a quill. And she did the only thing she could think of to possibly save her friends.
Aurora wrote Cassius Locke a note.
She scrawled the words quickly, but with a firm line of ink. When finished, she stared down at the words, hoping she was not making another mistake, but knowing she had to do something. She took one last look around her old sitting room and slipped away, returning to her mother’s room.
“Finally!” Sly cried. “Hurry up.”
Aurora’s brow furrowed in confusion as she emerged onto the balcony to find the linens with her mother inside them already gone.
“Go, up and over,” Sly urged.
Still confused, Aurora leaned over the edge of the balcony and she found her mother, safe in the arms of the man she had loved and lost. Kiran was covered in soot, and a bright red burn streaked from cheek to chin, but he cradled her mother effortlessly and with great care. Ransom and Bait were huddled close, keeping watch for soldiers no doubt. Tears began gathering in her eyes as she and Kiran looked at each other, but she knew there would be time for her gratitude later.
So Aurora crawled over the ledge of the balcony, her feet dangling, and she let go.