Thirteen Years Earlier
Cruze was not sure of the days any longer. More than a dozen had passed, of that he was certain, but sometimes the days and nights blurred during tempests and it was difficult to know the difference when dark clouds blocked out the sun for endless lengths of time.
The numbers of those he had been stranded with were beginning to dwindle quickly, and he did not allow himself to think too long on the loss. His father used to tell him that only the strong survived, and the rest did not matter. That was back when his father still visited … before he decided that Cruze was not one of the strong ones.
But Cruze would show him. Someday. He would start by proving himself here in this jungle.
Of those that were left, there was him and the girl Kess, the one with the bruise on her neck, though that had nearly faded away completely now. There was also a tall boy with dark skin, and a younger boy he had taken under his wing. One other girl remained, with dark red hair and a mottled purple-and-red mark around her eye that Cruze had assumed was a terrible bruise in the early days. But the color had remained exactly the same, so he guessed now it was a birthmark of sorts.
It was her, the one with the mark, who made Cruze finally understand why all the others had been taken. He saw her save herself in a way that should not have been possible.
It had rained so much and so often over the past few days that the river they depended on had swelled past its banks, swallowing up the rocky shelter they had claimed as their own. What had once been a calm and winding provider of sustenance became a ferocious blend of rapids and debris that rose with unexpected swiftness. Half their party had disappeared in the initial floods, never to be found—mostly the younger children who did not know how to swim, or those who had already grown too sick and weary to battle the rapids.
But she—the girl with the mark—Cruze had seen her hold out a hand and stop a wall of rushing water in its tracks, giving her the extra seconds needed to climb up into the same tree in which he was already taking refuge.
Even after they had relocated, the danger did not end. Animals had come after the floods. The rising water had displaced them too, so they were all on the run—everything from small, harmless creatures to wild boars to the large, predatory cats that stalked the jungle. It was the latter that had taken another member of their contingent.
Kess had been the one to find the body. She and the marked girl had taken to wandering off together for long periods of time, sometimes to collect firewood or other supplies, sometimes for no reason at all. Cruze had sent one of his ghosts to follow them, in part because he was curious about the other girl’s abilities and because out of everyone, he felt a certain connection to Kess.
He had had a great many visions since being stranded in the jungle, and he was learning to tell the ghosts apart, to communicate without words. In fact, he interacted far more with the invisible whispers and stirs of emotion than with the other children at the camp. When he heard Kess screaming, he feared the worst, and he yanked hard on the connection he had to the spirit watching her. Even from a distance, he received an answer, flashes of Kess, safe but distraught. He still tried not to care about the others, but that did not mean he wanted to be alone. And if that meant keeping someone alive with him, he intended for it to be the girl who was smart enough to save herself when needed.
With directions from the spirit, he had been able to find the girls quickly in the woods. When he came upon Kess in the clearing, she was vomiting against a tree, and he knew why as soon as he saw the half-eaten body of the young girl who had wandered off to use the bathroom and had never come back. Her skin had been torn open in several places, and her insides were no longer where they were supposed to be. Instead they were scattered around her in a grotesque display.
Another body he would have to deal with.
The others were too squeamish, so Cruze had taken on the duty of disposing of bodies when nature did not do it for them. This would need to be addressed quickly or it would bring more predators crawling around their new camp.
“Are you all right?” he asked Kess, who still hovered near the tree, her palms pressed to the bark and her head ducked low.
“I do not know how much longer I can stay here.”
“You are not her,” Cruze told her. “You are a survivor.”
“Right now I am. But this place … if we stay here, it will take us eventually. Somehow, someway.”
“You want to leave?”
“Don’t you?” The question came not from Kess, but from the other girl, the one with the mark. Cruze scowled, turning to face her. A swarm of otherness pressed in around him, and he knew immediately what it was. He had made promises in his time here. He had seen deaths both in the present and the past—so many that he was beginning to know the forest by the marks death left behind, by the memories and ghosts that lingered. They had opened themselves up to him, and he could not abandon them.
“You two should go back to camp. I will deal with this,” Cruze said, gesturing toward the body, another death. He wondered if he would encounter her spirit at one point too.
“Really though,” the red-haired girl continued. “You think it better to stay here than try to leave? Maybe we could make it out of the jungle, find another city to take us in.”
Cruze resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He might have lived in a ramshackle house shared with near a dozen women, but one thing his father had done for him was provide the books needed to educate himself.
“The nearest Stormling city is Odilar, on the other side of the Sahrain mountains. We would have to trek north through the entire jungle, then cross the mountain paths. Here at least we have water and some degree of shelter. If we leave, we are at the mercy of both the storms and the land.”
The girl lifted her chin. “Then we don’t make for a city. We make for the coast. Perhaps we will have some chance there of finding help.”
Curious. If she was a witch of water, as he suspected, she would feel more comfortable by the sea. His father had called the original magics evil. When Cruze had asked for a book on the subject, he had gotten a swift slap to his cheek, and an order never to speak of those magics again.
But he did not think his father would approve of the voices he heard and the visions he saw either. Would they make him evil in his father’s eyes? After this long in the jungle on his own, Cruze decided he did not care what his father’s opinion would be. He had his own ideas on the subject.
“On the coast, we will be a vulnerable target for the next hurricane. This is not a world in which one finds help,” he said.
“So then what do you suggest?”
Cruze was unsure what to make of the girl, the marked one—he had heard the others call her Jael. She looked at him with an expectant glare and asked, “Well? Do you have a suggestion or are you only here to tear apart ours?”
Cruze straightened to his full height and said, “I suggest you keep surviving.”
Aurora did not recognize the building to which Kiran led them. It was only one street over from the palace walls, and appeared to be well kept. An intricately hand-painted sign hung over the door declared it THE MERMAID TAVERN. Aurora had little experience with taverns, but this one seemed nicer than most. The building was well painted and quite large—two, maybe even three floors. The inside was dark, but Kiran avoided the front door, leading them through a side alley and around back instead. He nodded to Ransom, and the man stepped up to the door at the back and gave a few hard knocks.
There was no answer, and Aurora looked around nervously, wondering how long they had until the Locke soldiers would be crawling the streets looking for them. The storms had undoubtedly bought them some time, but the longer they spent out in the open, the more vulnerable they were.
And it was all her fault. So many things were her fault that if she let herself think about them, let her mind wander in that direction, she feared she might collapse in on herself. So she treated the thoughts like she would a meddling soul and blocked them out.
Ransom stepped up to the door again, this time knocking repeatedly until they heard movement on the other side. A lock clicked and the door swung open, revealing a haphazardly dressed Zephyr on the other side. She had replaced her rebellion gear for another one of the long, draped and flowing dresses that flattered her shape, but she appeared as if she had pulled it on in a hurry.
“Bleeding skies,” the woman muttered. “Inside now, before anyone sees you.”
Ransom went in first, his big body narrowly squeezing past Zephyr into the building beyond. Sly went next, and when Aurora hesitated, Kiran jerked his head for her to go in ahead of him. She did, but she hovered near to the door, waiting for him to pass through with her mother. By the time he did, Ransom had already cleared a nearby table of the chairs stacked on top, and Kiran swept forward, laying out her mother atop it with care.
Aurora rushed over, hearing the slam of the door and the turn of multiple locks behind her.
“What did you do?” Zephyr growled, pushing through the group until she stood facing Aurora across the table. “I already know you went against my orders.”
“I don’t take orders from you,” Aurora shot back.
“You do if you want to be part of this rebellion. There are lives at stake. Any miscommunication, any alteration in the plan could ruin us all.”
Aurora did not answer. She couldn’t. Because as much as she hated to admit it, Zephyr was right. Jinx had walked into that palace with her today because she trusted her, because they were friends, and now she had lost her freedom, and possibly her life because Aurora had failed. Aurora could only hope that her note would save her. That the risk of revealing herself would pay off. If only she had not kept her plan a secret, if she had enlisted more help, if they had done reconnaissance rather than rushing in without more details … Aurora was no general in an army, nor was she a leader of a rebellion. She was a princess—a naive and defective one at that. How had she ever thought she could make a difference? Could do any of this?
“Well…” Zephyr finally said, crossing her arms. “Is anyone going to tell me what you have here? Or did the princess simply miss her fancy linens and decided to take them with her?”
Aurora gritted her teeth, and refused to rise to that bait. Instead, she leaned over the table and began folding back the sheets. Her mother’s hair came into view first—not quite as skyfire white as her own, more a starburst of pale blond and gray that shimmered in the low lantern light. It covered her face, and Aurora carefully pushed back the strands, tucking them behind her mother’s ears until her face was revealed.
The room went deadly silent—not unlike the eerie quiet of a storm’s eye. Then things erupted in a cacophony of noise. An awed curse dropped from Bait’s mouth, at the same time that another curse, far less awed and more gruff, came from Ransom.
“You kidnapped the queen and brought her here?” Zephyr said, somewhere between a shriek and a whisper. “Do you have any idea how many soldiers will be in here tonight, drinking ale, and shaking off the day’s battle? And you decided to put everything I have built at risk by coming to my place of business? Do you realize what you’ve done?”
“We had to get off the streets,” Kiran replied. “This was the closest safe place I could think of.”
“Safe,” Zephyr scoffed. “Safe? You are mad. The entire lot of you. This place is a lion’s den. On purpose. We cater specifically to soldiers and dignitaries and nobility in the hopes that they will let things slip when they are too deep in their cups. If there is ever even any suggestion or whisper that we are hiding something here, all of that goes away.”
“I am sorry, Zephyr. I know it is not ideal,” Kiran said. “But the alternative was that we risked being seen with her as we crossed the city, or worse, captured. I made a judgment call.”
Zephyr stared hard at Kiran, then shifted her gaze to focus on Aurora. “It seems to me your judgment is in question.”
Aurora did not know whether that retort was directed specifically at her, or Kiran, or both. She did not particularly care at the moment. She was tired. Her body ached. Her spirit too. And her mind weighed far heavier things than the words of a near stranger.
“I apologize for the disruption,” Aurora said. “But my mother is not well. She was being drugged by the Locke family. It’s why she sleeps. You may not like me—”
“I don’t much like your mother either,” Zephyr snapped. “She might be better than the Lockes, but that does not make her a saint.”
Aurora swallowed, and the truth tasted bitter all the way down. “I know that. I—I know you do not owe her anything. But you and I, we have an agreement. I take back the kingdom, you get to use and sell magic freely.”
“Princess, after today I am not sure I trust you can even do that. Perhaps you need mother’s help. And what’s to say her royal highness won’t turn around and prosecute us all as soon as this is over?”
“Aside from the fact that my mother may never wake—” Aurora steeled her voice and continued. “—I gave you my word. And I will keep it.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Frustrated, Aurora did the only thing left she could think of to do. She reached for the buckles on the neck of her leather vest and began pulling them free with hurried, agitated motions.
“Aurora,” Kiran warned.
“It’s the only way.”
He pushed between her and Zephyr, blocking the other woman’s sight, and he laid a large hand over the two of hers where they worked.
“Don’t.”
Kiran’s voice was low and urgent, and it was the closest Aurora had been to him in days. Her hands felt freezing in comparison to his. She tilted her head up enough to meet his eyes. “I cannot run from it forever. I could run from this world into the next and still get no farther away.”
His dark eyes bored into hers, and the intensity coming off him melted away some of her fatigue. She gently shook his hand off, and began working on the buckles again, less frenzied this time. “This is who I am. I either accept it, or live forever as a fragment of a whole. I told you on the night it happened I would never wish the world smaller, not even to make it easier. My mind has not changed.”
She finished with the line of fastenings and peeled back the leather until a faint white-blue glow lit the space between them. She met his eyes once, firmly, and it was clear he still disagreed. But he had given up his right to have an opinion when he ran from what they had at the first sign of difficulty. He might be content to spend the rest of his life running from the truth, but she was not.
So Aurora stepped around him and into the open. The flickering of the light grew stronger as she met Zephyr’s gaze, and she pulled the leather down enough that the skyfire branching out beneath her skin became visible to the woman.
“You can trust my word because I am not like the other Stormlings. I am what happens when the magic of a spirit witch combines with the lineage of a Stormling.”
For the first time since they had met, Zephyr looked uncomfortable, perhaps bordering on afraid. She did not look away from the storm that resided in Aurora’s chest as she said, “You—you are like him? Like the man outside the gates?”
“Not like him, no. But I can do what he can do. I can call a storm to do my bidding if I so choose.”
Her jaw slack, Zephyr shook her head and asked, “Then why do you need me? Why bother with the rebellion at all? Just go in and take your kingdom.”
“As I said, I am not like the man outside our gates. I have no wish to cause destruction, no wish to bring another unneeded death upon this city. I want to protect it. See it thrive in safety and freedom. If this becomes an all-out fight between my magic and the Stormlord’s with the Locke family in between, I am not sure anything or anyone would survive. I don’t know the answer yet, but I know throwing another storm into the sky is not it.”
Zephyr stared at her for a long moment, hesitated, then took a step closer, leaning to peer closer at her chest. “So, that’s skyfire then? Inside you?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes. It’s the soul of a skyfire storm I took in the wildlands.” Aurora kept her chin up, and hoped none of the residual anguish from that experience showed on her face. She might be telling her secrets, but that did not mean she wanted to show all her vulnerabilities. “For another hunter, it would have produced a Stormheart. But for me, because I carry the power of a spirit witch, things … happened differently.”
“And do you carry other storms too?”
Aurora heard Kiran shift behind her, and somehow knew he was moving closer. She could feel the nearness of him the way moisture collected in the air after it rained. “Not in the same way,” Aurora answered. “But I can call any storm I wish with the use of a Stormheart.”
“Interesting,” Zephyr muttered. “So, if we needed a particular kind of storm magic, you could call that storm and control it long enough for one of your hunter friends to collect significant supplies?”
Aurora considered the idea. “The storm would draw attention, of course. But if we could get outside of the city, into the wildlands, then yes. Yes, I could get you whatever you needed, provided we had a Stormheart for me to use for the summoning.”
“Good. Then fasten yourself up, and let’s get you and your mother hidden away before it’s time to open. I don’t want you taken away before we have the chance to make use of your skills.”
Relief rushed through Aurora, followed closely by the exhaustion that had been gnawing at her since she had used her magic in the palace. Zephyr led them up two sets of stairs, Kiran following behind again with her mother. She showed them up into a loft area that overlooked both the first and second floors, and placed them in a room connected to her office with a soft bed covered in silken sheets and thick, warm blankets. Aurora saw her mother settled, then seated herself on a plush sofa nearby, sinking immediately into the cushions with a barely contained groan.
“I could use some help getting things ready downstairs if any of you are willing,” Zephyr said.
Ransom volunteered. Bait and Sly made plans to return to the inn to fill in Duke, who would no doubt be worrying about their long absence. As the group began to filter out, Zephyr stopped at the door, wrapping her knuckles softly on the frame.
“If you need anything, send Kiran down. You just stay out of sight, Princess.”
Aurora did not know when it had been decided that Kiran would be staying with her. Frankly, she was too tired to argue. And she was not sure she would, even if she were fully rested. It had been too long since they had been in the same room alone. Too long since she had been able to just look at him. She wanted that, even if it was not wise.
Zephyr continued, “And thank you, for trusting me with your truth.” Then the water witch was gone, along with all the others, and the door closed, leaving her alone in the quiet with the man who broke her heart and a mother who might never wake.
Kiran leaned back against the door, keeping his distance. That was the safest thing to do, really. If he crossed the room like he wanted to, he would begin by checking Aurora over, because he itched to be certain that she was well. And if he did that, if he touched her, he would want to keep touching her, and he would not be able to remember all the reasons it was a bad idea for them to be together. He would forget all the ways in which he was wrong for her, and she for him, and he would offer himself up in any way she would have him—as friend or comforter or lover, whatever she asked.
So instead he concentrated on the feel of his shoulder blades pressing into the door, and he watched. She removed the heavy hood that covered her hair, along with the high-necked leather brace that hid her secret. He understood why she had told Zephyr, but that did not make him any more comfortable. She did not see herself the way he saw her. She was constantly throwing herself into the midst of things—willing to be the shield for others—but she did not know how easily she could be made a martyr, or a pawn, or a commodity to trade. She was not as naive as she had been when they first met, but she still always assumed the best of people, of this world. Kiran knew better. And he knew it would demolish him if something happened to her because he did not protect her when he could have.
But where did he draw the line between guarding her from harm and guarding himself from her? For there was nothing for him in her world except pain; he knew that with the utmost certainty. As she shook out her starlight hair and stretched her tired limbs, he wondered if he was past the point of caring. Did he really think he could leave her one day? Even if she regained her crown, if the Lockes were removed and the Stormlord no longer a threat, could he walk away and leave her to live a life with him nowhere in it?
He was not sure. He could not imagine himself doing that any more than he could imagine himself staying while she drifted farther and farther away, out of his world and back into hers. There were only impossible choices left to him. He had never been one to contemplate the future. With the life he led, it was better to assume you did not have one, live each day as it came.
Aurora was the first to speak. With her hands folded in her lap and her head down, she said, “I know you must hate me.”
Kiran stood frozen, the muscles of his shoulders bunching even tighter. The only thing he hated was that he did not know how to act around her anymore. He wanted to reassure her, but he worried if he said more than a few words at a time his heart might come tumbling out after. He might tell her of the way he lay awake at night thinking about her, how he could close his eyes and recall the exact color of her eyes, and the curve of her chin, and the way her nose tipped up ever so slightly at the end. He would just keep going until he turned inside out from wanting her.
So he fell back on old habits, and asked his own question, rather than providing an answer. “Why would I?”
“Because…” Her voice shook slightly. “Because Jinx.” Her shoulders trembled, and she buried her face into her hands, and he was across the room before he even realized his shoulders had left the door.
He crouched down in the space between her and the bed, but did not move to touch her. “She made her own decision to accompany you into the palace. I have known Jinx a long time, and she does not do anything she does not wish to do. She knew the risk, and she went anyway.”
“For me,” Aurora whispered, lifting her head. Pools of tears made the light blue of her eyes look almost incandescent. “She took the risk for me. You must wish I had never walked into the Eye.”
Did he wish that?
Maybe. Or rather … a part of him wanted to wish that. He wanted to be able to go back to his old life, to slip away into the wilds as if nothing had changed, and be content as he had been before, if not entirely happy.
But now … goddess, he knew he would find nothing but misery in the wilds. He could not even remember what being content felt like anymore. There was only this chasm that existed in the space between being with her and without her. She had stretched him beyond what he had thought himself capable of, and now the world was brighter and bigger and more dangerous, but sweeter too, and once a life had been expanded as his had been, he did not think it could be shrunk down to what it once was.
But the guilt she felt? That … that was something he knew intimately. And he knew how to deal with it too.
He stood, squaring off in front of her. She had to lean back into the sofa to see him, and when she did, her eyes had gone wide and wary, as if she was waiting for him to pronounce some terrible punishment.
“Are you one of us?” Kiran asked.
“What?” Her head tilted slightly, wide eyes blinking.
“Are you one of us? Our crew? Would you fight by our side if we needed it? Would you provide help if we asked? Would you risk yourself for one of us?”
“Of course I would.”
“Then why would I hate you? You could have died at any moment you were with us. There are a thousand ways to die in the wildlands. Attacked by an animal. A fever. Bandits. Not to mention the storms. We take risks. It is what we do. And all of us are prepared for the day one of those risks does not pay off. Jinx made a choice, and this time the risk won out.”
“How can you be so casual about this? I thought Jinx was like family to you.”
“Close to,” Kiran affirmed. “My point is … accepting the bad days is part of being a hunter. If each of us held on to the blame every time something went wrong in the wilds, we would never make it past a city gate again.”
“But we are not in the wilds.”
“That’s true. But it’s also not over. You said you are one of us. There will come a time to get her back. I do not know when. And I do not know how. But I know we will keep going until we figure it out, and I know you will be right there beside us, novie. And that is all I need to know.”
Kiran finished his speech with his arms folded, and with her in his peripheral vision. His heart thumped unsteadily as he waited for her to respond. Normally, he knew how to lead his team, knew how to soothe the fears of a conflicted novice, but things were so much more complex with Aurora.
“It seems you know a great deal more than me,” Aurora said, with a hiccup of a laugh. Kiran turned quickly, unsure if he had offended her, but she was … smiling, albeit tentatively, her eyes still red with worry.
He shrugged. “I have a lot of faith in you, that’s all.”
“I guess it’s good at least one person does,” she replied, her tone dropping.
“What happened to the girl who was going to travel the wilds and win her magic, no matter what I or anyone else said?”
Aurora sighed. “I am beginning to realize that I traded one kind of naivety for another. I left this sheltered place, looking to learn more about myself and the world, and I did that. I thought I had cracked open some secret and everything would then fall into place. But I forgot that it is not as simple as my single journey from beginning to end, that there are thousands upon thousands of other journeys happening simultaneously. Why should mine be any more important than theirs? We’re all connected, and more suffering for one means more suffering for all. At least that’s how it should be. But everything is so divided, no one here looks past the parameters of their own wants and needs. Promise me you will tell me if I ever do that—if I put my own wants ahead of the humanity of others. Again, that is.”
By the end of her speech, she was rubbing the heel of her hand over the place where the skyfire originated in her chest. And he could not help himself any longer; he was drawn to her like waves to the shore. He could try to hold himself back, but as long as he was near her, he would find himself falling again and again and again. She was the irresistible tide.
He sat down on the sofa beside her, slowly, so that she had the chance to object or move away if she wanted. When she stayed where she was and boldly met his gaze, he looped an arm gently over her shoulder.
“I did not want you to be a princess. You know that by now. But if anyone should be admitting mistakes it is me. I was selfish and greedy. I wanted you all to myself. But the world needs a princess like you, Aurora. It needs someone who contemplates the suffering of others. We need someone willing to admit to mistakes, willing to compromise and work alongside people from every background. This world needs your courage and your compassion, and I never should have tried to keep that for myself.”
Ever so slowly, her body began to lean into his, until her head nestled into the hollow of his neck and her chest lay along the side of his own. She breathed in deeply, and then turned her eyes to her mother. He felt the soft tickle of her hair against his cheek, and the gentle rise of each breath as it moved from her body into his. And when he went to say something else, anything else to prolong this moment, he realized she was already asleep.
And for the first time in a long while, the knot of longing in his chest began to unwind, and the pain of missing her subsided.