Storm Princess Saga- the Complete Series

by Everly Frost

  “How come I never noticed that?” A bunch of gargoyles lugging in wooden planks seems like a major disruption. Especially in the quiet of night.

  Roar scratches the back of his head and tightens his mask. I’ve gotten so used to seeing the gargoyles bare from the waist up that I hardly notice anymore. Sweat drips down the side of his face and down his chest. It’s warm in the fourth tunnel.

  He says, “You… ah… you’re a heavy sleeper.”

  He seems oddly uncomfortable answering my question and I’m not sure why. I let it go even though I want to ask more. I was never a heavy sleeper in Erawind. In fact, light noises would wake me. I still remember the night Baelen woke me from my dreams when he sat outside my bedroom door, completely drunk, blaming the storm for tearing us apart.

  On top of that, the arrival of the female gargoyles the other day sounded like a tornado so I don’t understand how I could sleep through the arrival of a swarm of males.

  That night, I’m determined to listen out for them. Cassian said there would be a delivery and I want to see it happen, even if I can’t interact with the couriers. I fall asleep while my toes chill and my breath frosts, determined not to sleep so deeply, but I don’t wake up until the next morning when my body temperature returns to normal. Curse these cold nights. It must be the night-time freeze that keeps me asleep.

  We spend the following week finishing the work of the two teams before us to clear the collapsed second tunnel. The third week is the easiest when we get to mine the first tunnel, but our turn in the fifth tunnel approaches fast.

  At the end of the third week, as he does at the end of each week now, Cassian calls me out of the food hall and shows me to the door of his bathing room. He closes the door behind him and I don’t see him again until the next morning. The night before we’re due to mine the fifth tunnel, I emerge from the bath to find a silver handheld mirror resting on one of the chairs.

  It’s the first mirror I’ve seen since I left Harem Hall. The door is still closed, but Cassian is the only one who could have left it here for me.

  I hesitate. I don’t pick it up. I don’t want to look at myself. I can see enough of my body to know that I’ve gained muscles I never had before, especially in my thighs and biceps—constant work will do that. I’ve spent a lot of time with my new hairbrush removing the bird nests from my head, so at least my hair won’t look terrible, but as for my skin and eyes… I’m scared I’ll look as bad as I feel. I can refuse to admit I’m exhausted if I don’t see it written all over my face.

  I turn the mirror face down and leave it on the chair. Half reach for it again. Take a step back before I do.

  “Why don’t you want to look at yourself?”

  Cassian stays in the shadow of the door. I didn’t hear him open it.

  “I’m scared of what I’ll see.” There I go again, acting like he’s my friend. I press my lips together, wondering what he’ll do, but he doesn’t move.

  “You have nothing to be afraid of.”

  But I won’t see the storm anymore. There it is. My greatest fear. For such a long time, I lived with lightning running across my skin, lighting up my eyes. Now it’s gone and I don’t want to see its absence. I don’t want to see that little girl who used to tug on her braid when she was nervous.

  He steps into the room, into the light, crosses the distance with quiet steps, and picks up the mirror, turning it to face me. Maybe it’s fear or uncertainty or something else, but I don’t look away.

  He tilts the mirror so the first thing I see is my neck. My skin is paler than I remember, but that would be because I haven’t been exposed to sunlight in four weeks.

  The mirror reveals my chin and lips next, then my nose and frowning eyes. When did my face get so expressive? When did my eyes become so pale?

  Like my skin, my lips and eyes are glossy, translucent. Radiant in a way that I can’t describe. Who is this elf looking back at me? She’s definitely not what I expected. The storm is gone but a different glow has taken its place. Something I can’t place. I press my finger to my lower lip, tracing the outline, tilting my head to examine my skin.

  The mirror shivers. My attention snaps to Cassian, to the slight clench of his jaw, but he hasn’t otherwise moved. He fixates on my finger, still pressed to my lips. I remove it slowly but his focus remains on my lips. With minimal movements, he reaches for my other hand, running his palm across the back of my hand, curling my fingers around the mirror handle so I’m left holding it.

  “It’s yours,” he says, his voice thicker than normal.

  He tucks his wings closed, spins, and leaves me holding the gift.

  Later, I crawl into my hammock after Llion flies me up. I’m colder than ever and desperate to bury myself in the blankets. My fingers are icy and my toes are popsicles. Llion didn’t say anything when I stepped onto his feet, but he winced when I pressed my freezing hands against his back. For a few blessed moments, his body heat warmed me, but then we reached my bed and I had to leave his warmth.

  I double the blankets over, curl my knees to my chest, and pull the covers all the way over my head before I fall asleep.

  For the first time in a long time, Baelen’s voice echoes in my dreams. Memories flash through my sleeping mind. He’s holding out his hand to me in the hallway of his childhood home. I’ve thought of a way for you to beat them. He’s running his fingers through my braid on the cliff’s edge, releasing my hair into the breeze before he kisses me. May I have your permission?

  He’s covered in flames. Acid rain drips upward into the sky. Marbella, baby, you’re in trouble.

  You’re running out of time.

  Wake up.

  A force as great as thunder blasts through me. The impact washes across me, right to left, lifting my body upward and casting it hard against the side of the hammock. Every bone shifts, released from gravity, weightless, and then snaps back into position as the blast passes by.

  I scream out the pain, eyes squeezed closed, my scream shrieking through the Cavity.

  The force wasn’t me. I didn’t do it. And it couldn’t be Baelen. I’ve combined my power with his enough times to know what his power feels like. The blast came from outside of me. From something far too powerful.

  30. Baelen Rath

  The rain no longer falls down my body. Instead, it drips upward into the sky. Tiny, blood-red drops lift from my shoulders as if the rain is peeling off me, taking me apart layer by layer, wearing me down.

  The field of wild grass is scorched and flattened for a hundred paces all around me. Still, I hold this damn sword, its tip never solidifying, and as the days pass, my shoulders become heavy, my torso more bloody, the wounds in my chest opening up just a little more.

  Ever since Marbella broke the thread that connected us, my view changed. Now, at the edge of the field, is a different sky, made up of moving pictures. Before, I sensed the world through her eyes, felt what she felt, heard what she heard. Now, I see it all as if it’s far away.

  Howl moves me around at his whim. One night, he puts me in a grand dining hall, where he eats dinner, gravy running down his chin as he orders a gargoyle to be imprisoned without food or water. The next, I’m placed in a dark room where the light doesn’t reach. The next, of all the brutal places he could take me… his harem, where I clench my fists until I lose feeling in my hands, existing only for the day when I will cut his head from his shoulders. I see Marbella in all their faces. I see her courage and determination. I see her pain.

  No matter where I’m taken, the Storm remains at the corner of my vision, a silvery bundle. With every atrocity, she becomes more wilted, curling over herself, trying to hide beneath her wings. Sometimes she screams, but her power is anchored in me and she can’t access it now. Like me, she doesn’t sleep. She sees everything, all the things she shouldn’t see. If I could break the chain that keeps her at my side, I would.

  Now, I stand in Howl’s personal quarters. It’s the middle of the night but he paces opposite m
e, his wings slightly outstretched, veins pulsing green, his ochre eyes glinting as he prowls back and forth.

  The door finally opens.

  The gargoyle whose name is Gerst enters the room and takes a knee, offering up a wooden box to Howl. Gerst is ranked second after Cassian. Over time, I’ve pieced together that Cassian beat Gerst in a fight and replaced him as Howl’s general, a fact about which Gerst is still sore.

  Howl snatches the box from his fingers, flipping off the lid. It hits the floor next to the Storm, startling her, but she curves her body closer to me, hiding beneath her wings.

  A smile grows on Howl’s face as he studies the box’s contents. I try to lean forward, not knowing what it contains. I catch sight of the edge of a glittering, sapphire object.

  He snarls. “Now, I will make Marbella Mercy submit to me.”

  The fuck you will.

  Rage flows through me so fast that I jolt forward, surprised by my own movement. I rally, pushing again, but the damn sword refuses to budge, holding me captive.

  I roar into the upward rain, my voice turning to thunder. Raindrops splash against the edge of the field, cast in that direction by the force of the wind suddenly swirling around me.

  I may not be able to move, but the rain can. I roar again, this time emptying my lungs, exhaling all my rage and all my fear for Marbella.

  The raindrops ignite into flames.

  Outside myself, I sense my body’s real movement. My hands curl into fists and my head rises. I open my eyes, rage and heat filling them, flames licking across my vision.

  Howl jolts so hard that he almost drops the box. He catches it before it falls, staring at me.

  Suddenly, my sight changes and for a painful second, I can see Marbella, curled up asleep, her auburn hair peeking out from under her blanket, her eyes closed. She’s peaceful. Serene. Crystalline Elyria web covers the space all around her.

  Then, her image fades and so does my power.

  Howl’s quarters fill my vision once more. Gerst backs away from my location, taking paces toward the back of the room. “Is he waking up?”

  Howl’s lip curls. “No. He can’t.”

  Gerst shakes his head. “You will need more than two heartstones to fight Baelen Rath when he wakes.”

  “You’re right.” Howl growls out his exasperation in a long, exhaled breath. “I will wait for a third.”

  My heart sinks. Howl has another heartstone.

  Power from his first heartstone pulses through him, glowing emerald as he reaches into the box to take hold of the second stone. The minute his hand touches it, my senses explode. Power from both stones ripples through the field, shrieking toward me.

  I hunch over my sword, bracing for impact. I need to warn Marbella, but I don’t know how. I don’t know if she’ll hear me.

  Marbella, baby, you’re in trouble.

  You’re running out of time.

  Wake up.

  31. Marbella Mercy

  I cling to the swinging hammock as the aftershock rages through me, whimpering into my blanket. “A heartstone. Another heartstone.”

  Llion rears up from the hammock next to mine, launching himself across the distance. “Lady Storm!”

  Tears leak down my face. I can barely open my eyes to look at him. “I felt it, Llion. I felt it.”

  Roar’s voice is urgent from the other side. “What’s wrong?”

  “What happened?” Both Welsian and Iago are awake. In fact, it sounds like everyone is. Lady Storm! My name, the one the gargoyles have given me, echoes through the other hammocks as gargoyles wake up all around me.

  I swallow and try to breathe. “Howl has another heartstone. I felt it like an explosion.”

  Murmurs of anger and despair filter through the listening gargoyles. Llion leans over me but directs his question to Roar. “Which heart could it be?”

  “It’s impossible to know, but at Crimson Court, the miners working in Mount Lightsworn said they were close to finding one. Howl’s promise would have given them a reason to unearth it. I’m sorry, Llion. That’s your wife’s home.”

  Llion’s shoulders slump. His wings form a protective curve around his torso. “Lightsworn’s heart is the strongest one Howl could get his hands on. This is the worst thing that could happen…”

  Now that the initial shock and pain have faded, another sensation slams into me.

  I’m cold.

  Burning and freezing at the same time. This is the first time I’ve woken up in the night since I got here and the deep freeze I find myself in is agony. Falling asleep was hard enough. Being awake is far worse. I shudder under the blankets, distracted by a light glowing beyond me.

  I force my eyes all the way open. What is that?

  I frown at the ceiling. Ice crystals cover it in a radiant white pattern glistening in the Elyria light. The nearest web has also turned white, its glowing strands resembling pure moonlight. The crystalline glow extends within several feet of my hammock, but not beyond. Further out, the ceiling is clear and the spider web is silvery-blue like usual. The ice crystals have only formed around me.

  It’s too cold to lift my arm out of the blanket, but I raise a finger beside my chin, pointing at the ceiling. “What is that?”

  “Ice,” Llion says, before returning to his conversation with Roar.

  “Yes-s-s.” I interrupt him, my teeth chattering. “But how did it get there?”

  He takes a closer look at me as all conversation dies down around me. For some reason, my question has dropped us into silence. He glances past me, maybe at Roar or Welsian. “We thought you knew.”

  I stare at him. “That I’m surrounded by ice?”

  “It’s been the same ever since you got here. Every night. We thought it was a storm thing. You always sleep through like it’s normal…”

  A shiver rocks my body. Llion leans closer to me, concern washing away his puzzlement.

  I say, “This is not a s-s-storm th-thing.” I want to be asleep again. I don’t want to be awake. Now that I am, the cold is eating me from the inside like acid. “Llion… I am… r-really c-c-cold…”

  Icy shivers spear through my spine. My breath frosts. If what they’re telling me is true, then I’m creating the cold. It’s not the natural environment here. But I don’t know how or why I’m doing it. I certainly can’t make it stop.

  “I-I’m so cold… it hurts… I d-don’t think I’m okay…”

  Llion touches his palm to my forehead. His eyes shoot wide. He lurches backward. “There’s something wrong. We need to help her—”

  The beat of a pair of strong wings interrupts him.

  Llion rotates in the direction of the sound, blocking me from seeing who it is, but I recognize Cassian’s growl. “What’s going on?”

  Nobody answers. The silence is thick.

  Llion says, “Lady Storm needs help.”

  Cassian leans around him. I catch a brief glimpse of his sapphire eyes, narrowed and assessing, taking all of me in with that quick assessment, before Llion shifts sideways in a protective gesture, challenging Cassian. “Not your help.”

  Cassian snarls. “Get out of the way.”

  Llion pulls in closer to me, Roar closes in behind me, and Welsian and Iago draw up with them. It must be awkward maneuvering around the hammocks, but I’m surprised by how quickly my friends surround me in a protective circle. They spread their wings to cover the gaps between them, wingtip to wingtip forming a defensive wall. So far, none of the guards have approached us. Only Cassian.

  Llion’s response is swift. “You’re not going anywhere near her.”

  Cassian’s voice sounds like it’s being grated through something sharp and unpleasant. Tense, but determined. Struggling to be patient. “I’ve ordered the guards to stay on the ground. I knew she was in trouble because I heard her scream. I’m not going to hurt her. She clearly needs warmth and you don’t have the wingspan to help her.”

  They don’t budge. Their wings don’t part.

  C
assian’s voice shifts closer. He must be right up in Llion’s face by now. “Did you hear me? I’m the only one who can help her.”

  When Llion still doesn’t move, Cassian exhales a sigh of exasperation. “Oh, fuck it… Llion, if she dies, Howl will remove my head from my shoulders. With my own bone lash. You know it’s not an empty threat.” He pauses. “Is that enough to convince you?”

  I try to speak, but it’s difficult. I force sound through my throat. “Llion… it’s okay… Let him through.”

  Llion breaks the wall of wings, but only to check on me. He’s so worried it hits me like a fist. Finally, he moves out of the way, but doesn’t take his eyes off the General. Cassian ducks under Llion’s hammock and ascends directly next to mine.

  He swiftly checks me over. “You need body heat. I need to get in there with you and then I’m going to wrap my wings around both of us to keep the warmth in. It means sealing you in with me.” He pauses and I can’t even begin to read his expression: desperately blank. “May I have your permission?”

  May I have your permission?

  His voice blends with the memory of Baelen’s. A sob tears out my chest and tears spring to my eyes but as soon as they slide from my eyes, they freeze. Tiny, frozen pearls burn my cheeks.

  Cassian’s eyes widen. He doesn’t wait for my answer. I’m not sure I can even speak to give it.

  He rips off his shirt, kicks off his boots, and slides into the hammock beside me, lifting the blankets so he’s under them with me. His boots thud on the ground far below as he spreads his wings carefully in each direction, sliding one over the top of us and the other all the way under the hammock and around to the other side.

  His wings overlap and settle against their own edges, gently forming a cocoon. Sealing us in just like he said. Under the blanket, he rapidly undoes the buttons on the front of my shirt, pushing the material apart. I’m naked underneath but he doesn’t pay any attention, supporting my torso and head with one arm as he leverages my shirt off with the other, sliding it down my arms and over my stiff fingers.