Thirteen Years Earlier
Cruze had found a spot of his very own, where he could get away from the others, and where he could listen to the voices without fear of anyone noticing. He discovered a place high in the canopy where branches from several trees crossed and wound around each other, creating a relatively safe cocoon for him to perch without fear of falling. It also gave him a good view of the sky to watch for approaching storms. He had taken to spending most of his days there, only keeping tabs on the camp and Kess with the help of the spirits who had become his companions.
In his time alone, he found himself hungry for more knowledge, about the past and whatever it was that was happening to him now. There was always the chance it was madness, of course, that had him hearing other voices, but as he searched his memories, he began to recall similar whispers during his time back in Locke when he was younger. They’d never lasted as long, not like the ones he experienced out here, and they had always seemed farther away. But he was almost certain that he had felt the sensation before being left in the jungle.
So he focused his energy on expanding his abilities, trying to communicate more effectively with the spirits, learning what he could about their deaths. For some, that was all they could remember. Others could provide minimal information about their lives. But for almost every spirit he encountered, when he tried to ask if they knew why they had been deserted in such a way, the spirits either grew quiet, disappeared, or could not remember.
“What are you doing up there?”
Cruze bolted upright, nearly toppling out of the tree entirely. But a strong breeze moved through the canopy at that moment, providing just enough of a reprieve for him to spread his legs and throw out his arms, rebalancing himself on the twisted limbs where he was perched.
He looked down to see Kess on the jungle floor, looking sheepish. “Sorry,” she said. “I did not mean to…”
“Distract me to death?”
She shook her head. “Definitely not.”
He shrugged. “I should have been paying closer attention.” Or one of the spirits should have warned him of her approach. He sent that thought out wide, and felt a few answering nudges of apology.
“I was … hoping we could talk,” Kess said, fretting nervously with the frayed end of her shirt. All of their clothes were little better than rags now. They had taken to ripping them up and remaking them into smaller, more wearable pieces as they all lost weight.
“Yes,” Cruze replied. “There are some things I would like to talk about too.”
He had been thinking more about the possibility of her being a witch, and the strange experience he himself had had since coming to the jungle.
He made his way down the tree quickly, used to the descent by now. When he was standing face-to-face with her, she seemed hesitant to ask whatever she had come for, so he took the opportunity to ask his own questions instead.
“Do you believe in the supernatural?” he asked.
“Do you mean magic? Of course I believe in storm magic.”
“No,” he snapped, his teeth grinding at the thought of such magic, and those he knew who wielded it. “Not storm magic. Other kinds.” Stormlings were all-powerful in this world; they made the decisions, created the laws, commanded the soldiers. They had everything when Cruze had nothing.
Kess hesitated for a long moment, but eventually, she nodded. “I-I do … believe, that is.”
Her hand went up to the collar of her shirt, pulling it closer to her neck.
“What if I told you that we were not the first to be left here, in this same area of the jungle? I have been seeing things, hearing things. There are ghosts in these woods, and … and they speak to me.”
“You have magic?” Kess asked.
Cruze scoffed. “I don’t know that I would call it that. If I showed any true aptitude for magic, I doubt my father … well, never mind. I just get these visions, like the ghosts are showing me things.”
“That is magic,” Kess insisted. “Of the spirit.”
Cruze frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means you can communicate with the souls of the dead.”
Cruze felt something hot and triumphant boil up in his stomach. So, it was true. He was not mad, as he had feared. And the visions were real. He had believed it, of course, done his best to convince himself rationally, but to have another confirm it …
“How do you know?” he demanded. “What do you know of it?”
Kess frowned and gave a sad shake of her head. “It is why we are here. All of us.” She pulled back the collar of the shirt she had been fiddling with, showing what was left of her nearly healed bruise. “I told you that I made a choice not to die. That choice was to use my ability to control air to save myself from a noose.” Cruze stared at the girl, dumbstruck. “I did not die when they kicked the stool from beneath my feet. So they sent me here instead.”
“Noose?” Cruze growled. “They tried to hang you? But … but you are a child.”
“As are you. And they left us both out here to die. The Lockes do not care. Anyone who is a threat to them, to their magic, or their way of life, they see as disposable.”
Cruze had trouble swallowing after that statement. His heart was beating so hard that he felt almost light-headed. Spirits pressed in close around him, so close—some of them trying to soothe, while others … others seemed to feed off his distress.
Kess continued, “That actually brings me to what I wanted to talk to you about. The others—we talked, and we have decided to leave. We’ve built a raft, and with my air magic and Jael’s water magic—”
“So she is a water witch?” Cruze interrupted.
Kess’s brow furrowed. “Yes, Jael can manipulate water. With our abilities combined, we think we can navigate the river to the coast without much danger. It is the fastest and safest way out of the jungle.”
“No,” Cruze said. “No, it is too risky.”
“No more risky than staying here.”
“But don’t you see? I can communicate here, with the ones that came before us. I can learn from them. And then—”
“And then what?”
“And then we will take revenge.”
Kess’s eyes went wide. “We are children. What revenge could we possibly take? I would settle for living. That is more than I thought I would have the day they put the rope around my neck.”
“Damn it, don’t you see? They got rid of us because they are scared of what we could become. They want us to die out here because we are strong enough to one day challenge them.”
“And how do you expect to challenge them when you can only talk to ghosts?” Kess snapped.
Cruze felt like he had been slapped. And for just a moment, a violent urge swelled through him that told him to return the damage, to give as good as he got, better, even. To return tenfold the pain upon whoever dared hurt him. But then the moment passed, and Kess looked at him apologetically.
“I am sorry. But our decision is made. We leave at first light tomorrow. I hope you will come with us.”
Cruze let her walk away, knowing he would not. He had finally found a place where he felt at home. Yes, it was among the dead, but they accepted him; they called him their own. And he would avenge them no matter what it took.
“Again,” Cassius yelled, and on his order the small contingent of soldiers he had built began the conditioning drill anew.
Since his brother had burned the city’s black market in a bid to impress their father, he had no way of obtaining the supplies to allow his soldiers to practice against true storm magic, so he had devised a compilation of the most difficult training exercises he could think of, and he put his men through their paces as often as possible, pushing them harder and harder until they moved with speed and fluidity. Soon, he would begin to test them by allowing them to cover the palace’s defenses in shifts. He would be there, of course, in the case of an emergency, but they needed more field training, and fighting the storms that plagued the city was the only option.
Eventually, they shifted to weapons training, and he joined in, trading off with different partners to test their skill levels, trying to determine who were his strongest men.
Someday soon he would need them at his side because he would not react defensively forever. To win they would have to pursue the Stormlord on their own terms, and he would make certain they were ready. Or as ready as they could be.
Finally, when even he dripped with sweat, he took mercy on the men and called for an end to their session. He heard no groans or complaints or other sounds, but he could tell by the slow-gait and tender movements of the men that they were grateful to be done.
Perhaps, they were finally beginning to take this threat seriously. The recent damage at the palace from a firestorm and twister occurring simultaneously had put things into perspective for many. He had been out of reach for only a short time, dealing with the infiltration by the rebellion and the fog magic they had left to spread through the palace that had mesmerized the majority of his men and made them useless, but moments was all it took for tempests of the Stormlord’s caliber to reduce something to rubble. It could have been so much worse. They could have lost everything that day, but someone had worked to defeat the storm in his absence.
Another mystery to solve.
It had to be Aurora. His mind could think of no other alternative. She was out there somewhere with a witch as a partner, and he needed to find out everything he could.
Once he made it back to his rooms, he shed the layers of his clothes until his chest was bare, and he wore only his pants. He wanted to call for a bath, but it had been too long since the last storm siren sounded. They had to be due for another soon. So he settled for dipping a cloth in the water basin in the corner and washing himself clean as much as he could without a full soak.
When he was done he returned to his desk and retrieved the book that had been delivered to him this morning. The cover was black leather with no title anywhere to be seen. But when he opened it, the first page revealed the words An Examination of the Original Magics.
All books on witchcraft in Locke had been purged long ago, but the laws in Pavan had not been quite as strict. The long existence of the Eye had enabled enough of an underground to survive that works like the one he held still survived, thank the goddess, for he needed its information now.
One of the Pavanian nobles that had taken a liking to Cassius from the moment he arrived and supported his bid for the throne even before Aurora disappeared had mentioned the book to him once upon a time. He was a collector of rare items and had procured it from the owner of a popular tavern, who was said to be quite the keeper of both secrets and unique items. It was only after Cassius had mentioned his own adventures into the Eye that the nobleman mentioned the tavern owner, for it appeared the person had some connection with the old market as well.
Perhaps after Cassius read the book, he would pay a visit to this tavern and see what information the owner could offer him. For now though, he turned the page and began to read, hoping for some insight into the earth witch with whom Aurora had aligned herself.
Three days passed with no change in her mother’s condition. On the first, Aurora mostly slept herself, waking up occasionally only to worry over her mother, note the awkwardness of being in close proximity to Kiran again, and fall back asleep in whatever place she could manage. By the second, restlessness had set in, and she had paced the room, stopping far too often to check the temperature of her mother’s skin or the rise of her chest. She had been left alone more then, with various hunters dropping by on occasion.
Duke visited, and it was the first time she had seen him since before the mission. She expected him to be disappointed for her part in Jinx’s loss, for the friendly lines of his old face to be set in a grim expression, but instead he offered her a fierce hug. She clung to him like a lifeline, and he sat patiently beside her while they waited for her mother’s condition to change. He asked her questions, and she told stories about her childhood, about her mother and brother. He reassured her in ways no one else could.
But by the third evening, she felt like the walls had begun to scream at her. She needed to be doing more than sitting here. Surely there was some way to help her mother, to help the rebellion, to help Jinx and Nova. She would go mad if she spent one more day stifled and shut away, watching her mother lying so still and vulnerable, feeling guilty and useless.
So when Ransom left her alone that evening to go down and assist with something in the tavern, Aurora took the opportunity to explore. She found a scarf in Zephyr’s office and bound her hair up in a popular knotted style that Nova had taught her, and she donned one of Zephyr’s long flowing cloaks that hung on the back of her office door. The material was soft and moved across Aurora’s hands like water. Wrapping the mass of fabric all the way around her, Rora stepped just outside Zephyr’s office door to the loft area beyond that gave her a view of the tavern below—both the more exclusive second floor and the ground level. She huddled back into the corner, away from Zephyr’s door, and observed the movement on the two lower floors.
The inside of the tavern shimmered in a soft blue light that reminded her of skyfire, but Aurora could detect no specific source of the blue tint, for the lanterns around the room and at each of the tables held plain burning wicks. The scent of seawater hung on the air, and a small waterfall fell over a rocky sculpture in one corner, a mermaid cast in bronze lounging on a rock at the base. If she had been anywhere else, Aurora would have thought it some marvel of mechanics, a system of pumps and pipes perhaps, but knowing what she did about Zephyr, she wondered if the woman was bold enough to risk magic in plain sight.
The room was crowded, the main bar full with people standing behind those seated. And most of the tables were full too, both the plain wooden ones on the first floor, and the more cushioned, private tables that were kept reserved for more special guests on the second floor. Aurora spied Ransom carrying a large box back behind the bar, but besides him every other employee she spotted was a woman. They came in every shape and size and look, but each of them wore pastel, flowing skirts that shimmered like the tail of a mermaid might if they were real; they dazzled in the blue light of the tavern. They smiled and charmed and cast coquettish glances at every man they passed, and every man in turn—whether he be a young lad barely old enough to drink or an old general she had seen countless times around her mother’s advisory tables—they all seemed to sway to the movement of the women around them, drawn like magnets.
On the second floor, she saw distinguished men meeting in alcoved tables, surrounded by plants for some modicum of privacy, but none of them paused their conversations when the women passed or stopped to refill drinks, and Aurora watched the way the women sometimes lingered by certain tables, unnecessarily dusting at plants, or filling up drinks that were nowhere near empty.
The men never seemed to notice. If they looked at the women at all, it was to stare or flirt or in a few instances reach out and touch. That was when Aurora saw the second male employee of the night. Zephyr’s lieutenant—the man called Raquim—was tall with dark skin and eyes that said what his lips did not. He had an uncanny way of appearing whenever a man tried to do anything more than talk to one of the women on staff.
Aurora was not sure how long she had been watching the ecosystem below her, studying the way it worked and thrived, before a tall form cut off her view. “What are you doing?” Kiran muttered, crowding her under his arm and shuffling them both back toward Zephyr’s office door. Before Aurora could argue, he had her through the door and shut away again. “You know you cannot be out there. If you are seen, you could be in tremendous danger. I told you that the patrols have been dramatically increased since the palace breach. All it takes is one person to recognize you.”
Aurora sighed, trudging through the office and into the bedroom next door. “I cannot stay in here forever. I need to do something.”
“Try resting.”
She snapped her head around to glare at him. “I am rested.”
Kiran held his hands up.
“What about a book?”
“I am tired of reading.”
Kiran raised an eyebrow. “You? Tired of reading? Are you ill?”
“No, but it does not help my mood when the only book in my possession is about a royal from a city that fell to vicious storms, especially when he at least got to do something. Finneus Wolfram braved an ocean looking for safety. I am braving a bedroom, while those women out there, complete strangers, mind you, risk themselves to gain information for us. I could be doing that just as easily.”
Kiran balked. “That’s ludicrous. There are some high-level people out there, from both the Locke and Pavan command hierarchy. They have most certainly seen you before.”
“I can wear a disguise. Those men are clueless. I watched them. They do not really see those women. They see what they want to see. And unlike the women working down there, I know what to listen for, and I will know whose conversations are worth my time.”
Kiran opened his mouth, his brows already set in a familiar straight line, and Aurora continued, “And don’t you dare forbid it. As if you have any right to rule over me because you are male, and I am not. If I am to rule a kingdom, surely that begins with the right to rule myself at the very least.”
Aurora stared at him, her chin tilted up slightly, and for a few long moments he said nothing. He just looked at her with the most confusing mix of anguish and frustration and something that might have been pride. Then he inclined his chin slightly and said, “You will have to convince Zephyr, but I am sure you will. You are remarkable in that way.”
A raspy voice broke in from the other side of the room. “She really is, isn’t she?”
Aurora gasped and spun around, the scarf on her head toppling to the side with the quick movement. Her mother was awake and struggling to push herself up onto her pillows, but her arms kept folding weakly under her own weight. Rora pushed past Kiran, rushing to her mother’s side to press her back, urging her to be careful.
“You are awake,” Aurora whispered, her throat choked with tears. “Oh goddess, I am so glad you are awake.”
Her mother’s too-bony fingers wrapped around her forearm, pulling Aurora’s hand down and against the queen’s cheek. “And you are alive.”
There was no stopping the tears then. Aurora could not fathom the pain she had put her mother through, the worry and grief her mother had suffered needlessly, because her plan went awry. If she had been brave enough to tell her mother the truth, if she had not kept so many of her fears about Cassius to herself—Aurora could not think of what might have been. There was no going back to fix her old mistakes; she simply had to do better moving forward. And this time, she knew that trusting people with her truth, the whole truth, was the only way they would possibly make it through.
Sometime in her crying, Kiran had slipped from the room, perhaps to inform the others of the queen’s waking. She took one of her mother’s frail hands between both of hers—it felt small and delicate, like a tiny bird.
“I have so much to tell you, Mother. Beginning with the fact that I love you so very much, and I am sorry I left you so worried.” She could not bring herself to apologize for leaving in the first place, not entirely, though she had plenty of regret and grief over the decision. She could have handled it better, left fewer people in jeopardy, prepared her mother in some way, perhaps. But she would not regret the things she learned and the ways she grew on that journey. She could not. “I had planned for you to receive a note explaining the truth of my disappearance, but things did not go as planned.”
Her mother listened through the evening and most of the next day as Aurora filled her in on everything that had happened, stopping occasionally when her mother’s body called her back to slumber. Aurora started from the beginning—from the way she had foolishly gotten wrapped up in Cassius’s flirtations, and overheard his true plans to control her and the crown. She left out details when necessary. Though she loved her mother, and she hoped by the end they would come to see things the same, she would not risk the identities of her friends and compatriots should her mother cling to her old ways of thinking about magic. They talked of the Locke family, and what occurred in the days after Rora disappeared. Aurora actually had to fill in some gaps for her mother there, using the knowledge she had gleaned from Taven. It seemed her mother had been incapacitated for a very long time indeed. They were sidetracked a few times as the queen asked for news of the kingdom, and how she had come to be wherever she was (which Aurora had refused to tell her). Aurora gave her the necessary information about the Locke takeover and the rebellion, and the Stormlord, but held her mother at bay when she wanted to continue asking questions about the current state of affairs. For one, Aurora was not entirely sure herself, having been cooped up here for days. Furthermore, she knew her mother would be determined to help against the Stormlord’s attacks, and she was far too weak to do anything but lie in bed for now.
So instead, Aurora tried to draw her into stories about her time in the wilds. She spoke at length of the changing landscapes, and the storms they encountered, and the emergence of her magic. That got her mother’s attention. The excitement that flushed over her features was almost enough to make her look healthy again. But Aurora was careful to weave her story slowly, leaving her mother in the dark about the nature of her powers as much as she had been, building to the discovery that she was something more than Stormling, something other. Though she hoped her mother could see the error of the prohibition of the natural magics on merit alone, she would make this about her if she needed to. If she had to make her mother choose between Stormling traditions alone and a free and fair way forward with her daughter, she would. Traditions and power and pride should not mean more than human lives.
Finally, when Aurora had told enough of her tale that she decided it was time to hammer home the truth to her mother, to prove once and for all that she would never be the perfect Stormling princess her mother had always desired, she began to unfasten the vest that hid her secret. She laid herself bare in front of her mother, presenting her truth with the light that beat in her breast.
“You see, when I took my first Stormheart, it did not happen for me like the others. The emotions I had been experiencing, the violent bursts when storms were near, they were unintentional uses of spirit magic. The old tribes were right. It is unrestful souls of the dead that truly lie at the heart of a storm, and somehow because I have a natural connection both to souls and to storms, I took the storm’s heart, the lost soul, into myself instead of gaining a talisman for use with magic.”
Aurora’s mother looked at her in wonderment and confusion. She reached out a finger, hesitating before she reached the skin where skyfire streaked underneath. “Does it hurt?” her mother asked.
“Not anymore.”
Her mother’s eyes lifted to hers. “But it did.”
Aurora shrugged. “I took another soul into my own. That kind of conquering comes at a cost.”
“But what does it mean?” Aurora’s mother asked, gesturing at the phenomenon in front of her.
Rora hesitated, unsure how her mother would react to the next piece of news. “You remember what I told you of the Stormlord? How he is said to have the ability to conjure storms at his bidding?”
The queen nodded. “I am still not sure I believe it. He is probably another one of those hunters, using fear to intimidate in my absence.”
“He is not a hunter, Mother.” Aurora flexed her fingers, trying to summon the same feeling of urgency she had felt in the palace when she had shocked the maid into giving them answers. At first, she only got a tiny spark, then the hair on her arms began to stand on end, and bright white light shot from the tip of her forefinger to her thumb in one strong, steady bolt. A few smaller branches arced around her fingers, zigzagging back and forth with a series of crackling pops. “He can call storms, Mother. As can I.”