by Cora Carmack
Pieces started coming back to her gradually—the fog storm in the clearing, Kiran battling for the heart, and the Stormlord catching her off guard. Goddess, his soul was unlike anything she had ever felt before. As he had marched her away, she had tried to make sense of him with her magic, to understand him the way she did other souls, but he was beyond comprehension. She did not know how much of the seething darkness in him was the souls he had taken and how much was the person he had been before. Aurora was not sure that was even a distinction that existed any longer.
She had cooperated with his demands for a while, until she was certain that they were far enough from Kiran that he was out of harm’s way, then she had fought to get free. She had kicked and screamed and punched, simultaneously pulling on every decent soul she felt nearby, ready to set off a hundred skyfire storms if she needed to in order to get loose. He was strong and lean, and he wrapped an arm around her throat from behind, cutting off the scream in her throat.
Before she had managed to pull even a single skyfire storm to her aid, something solid and heavy hit her on the back of the head. She was not sure what had happened after that, or how long it had been since she had taken the blow. She only knew her head rang with pain, and every light, every sound was overpowering.
She tried to listen for any signs of the Stormlord, but she could only hear sounds of nature. There was a babbling brook somewhere nearby, and wind blew hard through the trees, hard enough that it had sounded like distant rainfall at first, before she felt the cold bite of it herself. There were a few birds, but even they were quiet, as if they knew they were in dangerous territory.
Eventually, Aurora chanced opening her eyes again. And though the pain was searing, and water filled her eyes, she managed to keep them open long enough to determine that she was alone, and that both her hands and feet were bound with iron manacles and attached to metal stakes hammered deep into the ground. The bindings had just enough give to let her roll from side to side, but not enough to allow her to sit up.
Aurora took a deep breath, and when that was not enough to stop the panic welling inside her, she took several more. She would not cry. She would not lose her mind to fear. She was not helpless.
She could not use her skyfire against her manacles; it would likely only heat the metal and burn her. She supposed she could call a skyfire storm now while her captor was gone, and hope that she was strong enough to defeat him when he returned. But she was weak and weary, and he had far more varied storms at his disposal, while she had just the one. He could kill her in an instant.
But if that was what he wanted, why not do it exactly where he found her? Why go through the bother of kidnapping her at all?
She could call a storm not for her defense, but to draw attention to the area. Maybe if they were close enough to the city, someone would see. Maybe Kiran would see and send help.
But Kiran did not even know what had happened to her. She would be drawing him directly into the most dangerous ambush possible. Or the Stormlord could have taken her far enough away that no one would see.
In the end, she did the only thing she could think of. She asked for help. Lowering some of her mental barriers, she sent out streams of anguish, trying hard to visualize the area where she was. She begged for a brave soul to come to her aid. This was not a project for a timid, hurting spirit. She needed a warrior, someone who would help her fight, someone who could find a way to help her send word to her friends.
Please, please. My name is Aurora, and I am in danger. I need help. If you can, please come find me.
Again and again, she sent out the message, changing it occasionally, hoping to lure anyone to her aid. She had no idea how far she was from the city, or in what direction the Stormlord had taken her, so she tried pushing her message in every direction, as far as her abilities would let her reach.
And though she could feel the usual hum of spirits around her in nature, most of those spirits had already found a measure of peace and were not willing to leave it. She could try to force one, but she was not sure that would work.
When someone finally came, it was not a spirit who meant to aid her, but the man who had captured her, and Aurora got her first true look at the Stormlord. He stomped out of the woods, his eyes settling on her as soon as he emerged. And with him came a crush of other souls that followed in his wake.
He looked … familiar, and yet she was certain that if she had ever seen this man in her life, she would never have forgotten it. His hair was black as oil, cut in short uneven spikes. His skin was not pale—it was nearly as dark as Kiran’s, in fact—but there was still a sickly pallor about him that made him look … unwell. His eyes were black pits, made all the more fearsome by the large scar that cut through his right brow, over his eyelid and down to the corner of his mouth. His body was long and lean, and he moved with a slight hop in his step, as though he knew some grand secret that everyone else did not.
“You should know,” he said, “when you send out those blasting pleas for help, you might want to be more discerning. Anyone bothering to listen can pick up what you are sending.”
He smiled at her, and the expression made her stomach turn. She wanted to throw up, but she did not think there was anything inside her to give. She yanked hard on the manacles bound above her head, knowing they would not budge, but unable to stop the impulse.
“Relax,” he sighed. “I am not going to murder you, if that is what you think.”
“No?” Aurora said, her voice wobbling. “Then why stake me to the ground?”
“To make you stay,” he said matter-of-factly, as if it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. He crossed closer toward her, then dropped a dead fox in front of her. “I brought food.”
Aurora watched in perplexed silence as he set a fire, not using flint or any other method, but the same way she had, with a few sparks of skyfire. His were smaller and more controlled; he did not scorch the ground as she had, only sparked the flame he needed. Then he set about skinning the game he had caught and roasting it over the fire.
He ignored her through most of the work, but he was not entirely solitary. She watched him move about the camp, noting when he would pause and stare intently in a direction, as if having a conversation with someone that she could not see. He did that again and again, sometimes for long periods, other times only a brief, meaningful look over his shoulder. And though she could not hear the discussions he was having—he had shrouded his mind too well—she was aware of the swarm of dark spirits that collected around him. They moved with him like an entourage, clinging to him as if he were their god. And she supposed in some ways, he was. They wanted nothing more than death and destruction, and he offered them that opportunity.
She strained to maintain her shields against the sheer intensity of the souls around her. Some of them had to be centuries old. The decay she felt went so deep, it would be impossible to excise. It was no wonder that the Stormlord’s conjured tempests always affected her so strongly, if these were the souls he was using. And from what she could feel, he had dozens upon dozens more. If he let these souls loose, the whole world would burn, not just Pavan.
Eventually, he took the meat off the fire and carried the stick over toward her, kneeling beside her. Her tore a piece of flesh off with his fingers and held it up to her lips. She waited for the catch, but he only held the piece of meat closer, an impatient look crossing his eyes.
It was humiliating, but she found her stomach rumbling fiercely in response, as if she had not eaten in days. She was reminded that she had no idea how long she had been unconscious. And it was safer in the short term if she did not openly question his kindness. She needed to understand why he wanted her. So she opened her mouth and took the meat he offered, chewing slowly. He sat back on his haunches, pulling off a piece for himself.
She took a second piece of meat, pleasantly surprised to find the ache in her head lessening, if only a little. As he took his bite, she gathered the courage to ask, “Why are you d
oing this?”
His head tilted to the side, and the change drew her eyes to the open neck of his shirt, where she could see the barest hint of a flicker across his chest like her own. Only his was not just skyfire. It flashed between a multitude of colors—the red of a firestorm, the black of a twister filled with debris, the brilliant white of a snowstorm. Again and again, she saw that flicker, the order varied and of no pattern that she could discern. She wondered if all the souls he had taken, all the others he had added to his own, fought for dominance inside him. It would explain the chaotic nature of his soul. It felt too complex, too big for her to fathom. And it was filled with broken pieces and gaping chasms that on another spirit she would have done her best to heal. But she was certain these were not the kind of wounds that could or should be mended.
“I do as the goddess wishes,” he finally answered, returning to their meal, tearing off another piece and holding it out toward her.
She hesitated and asked, “The goddess?”
He shoved the meat at her, and she took it, chewing as quickly as she could.
“Surely you, who have been granted her greatest gift, are a believer?” he asked, staring intently at her, a dangerous warning in his gaze. She tried not to let her eyes flick over to the scar that surrounded his eye. Intensity crackled in the air around him, and she had a feeling if she could see the storms over his heart, they would be flickering wildly.
“I believe,” she said, regardless of whether it was true. Honestly, she was not sure what she believed any longer. She had been raised to believe the goddess a superstition of the past, a myth, but everything else she knew to be true had been turned upside down. She was not sure of anything any longer. “I believe there is something bigger than us, something bigger than the petty things the world becomes so focused on. But do you mean … do you speak to the goddess?”
He sneered. “I do not need to. She gave me an ability that only gods have had before me. To pour out storms according to my will. The last time such a skill was needed, it was the Time of Tempests, and the goddess had been betrayed by the very followers she had blessed. Now, all these years later, the same is true again. Those who are goddess-blessed have forgotten their origins, forgotten where their powers came from. They have given in to greed and perversion and cruelty. It is time to set things right once more, to cleanse the world of those who shame the goddess, to rid the world of Stormlings once and for all. I am the weapon she sent to do it.”
“And what am I?” Aurora asked, her heart thundering.
The Stormlord had forgotten their meal in his long speech, and now he went back to it, offering her another piece of food with a shrewd, narrow-eyed look.
“That is what I am here to discover. You are like me. I felt you from the day you approached the city. I have been waiting, watching to see what the goddess would have you do. When I felt you pull one of my souls in the forest, I could wait no longer. What brought you here?”
Aurora swallowed, knowing she had a careful line to walk. “The same thing as you. I have been working with the rebellion to overthrow the Lockes. That is why we were in the wilds, gathering magic. We were preparing for an attack.”
His head tilted to the side, his eyes sliding off to stare somewhere over her shoulder, and she knew that he was having another one of those conversations.
“Why not use your abilities?” he asked, turning to face her directly again.
“I-I was. But by sending magic to the rebellion, more people can do the goddess’s work. Don’t you see? Even now, ungifted humans could be attacking the Lockes without me, because I gave them the means.”
His lips flattened into a line, and she knew she had to do more to sell her story. “I am not as advanced as you. I only recently discovered my abilities. I have only skyfire at my command right now. I am dependent on Stormhearts to call any other kind of storm.”
He tore off a large chunk of meat with his teeth as he stood. He walked back over to the fire, chewing, his expression unreadable. Once he had laid the stick down next to the fire, he turned and looked her over again. His eyes flicked to a few spots in the air around her, before he finally shrugged. “I suppose I could teach you. There must be a reason the goddess sent you. She means for us to work together in this mission.”
Aurora nodded emphatically. “Yes, that has to be it. How else would two people with such rare abilities end up in the same place?”
“True. I had planned to attack again tonight. Perhaps, you can join me, and show me what skill you have with skyfire.”
Aurora’s heart beat so hard, it felt like it took up her entire chest.
“Remember, though, what I said about the rebellion? There are people in Pavan who hate the Stormlings as much as you. We do not need to hurt them to get to the Lockes. In fact, I already know for a fact that the rebellion has kidnapped Casimir Locke with the intent to hand him over to you.”
His face turned hard, the scar on his face pulling taut.
“Is that so? And how might I reach this rebellion of yours?”
Aurora tried to keep her voice calm, not to let any eagerness show. “I could contact them. I know of a secret go-between they have in the camps.”
He folded his arms over his chest, and though his eyes did not leave her face, his head tilted slightly to the side, and she wondered if another spirit was whispering to him, if they could all see straight through her.
“No,” he declared after some time. “I do not think I will be letting you go quite so easily. Not until I am certain I can trust you. If the rebellion is of use, I will decide that myself.”
Then he turned and walked out of the woods, leaving her alone again. But alive, at least.
* * *
Days. That was how long Kiran had wasted. He could not think of all the things that could have happened to Aurora in that time. He thought at first that maybe she had not taken enough powder, that somehow, the fog had gotten to her. Because when he had come to, fog Stormheart clutched in his fist, Aurora had been nowhere in the clearing.
The dense clouds had still surrounded him, even though the magic that had controlled them was long gone. He thought she might have wandered off, her mind altered by the fog storm’s magic; so he had searched for her, calling her name loud enough that his voice went hoarse. He searched through the night and into the next morning. When he still could find no trace of her, he went back to their camp, thinking maybe she had wandered off, but had come to her senses, and when she went back to the clearing, he was not there. It was reasonable to assume the next place she would go would be their camp. But she was not there either. As far as he could tell, it had not been touched.
He wandered the wilds for another day, fearful every moment that he might stumble upon her body. There were so many ways to die in the wilds. He knew them all, had seen so many of them up close and personal. He used to pride himself on the fact that none of it scared him; he was ready to meet death however it came.
But the thought of finding Aurora in any of those ways? It was worse than death, worse than any torture he could devise. When he had walked for nearly two days without sleep or any sign of her location, he gave in to the foreboding twist that was knotting up his stomach, and turned back for Pavan. Kiran needed help. He needed Duke and Ransom and Bait and Sly, and gods damn it, he needed Jinx. She would know what to do. With her earth magic, she always had some way of learning things that the others could not. She would listen to the trees or touch the soil, and somehow know things.
He needed his family.
By the time he made it on foot to the remnant camp outside the city gates, night had fallen on the third day since Aurora disappeared. There was some kind of commotion going on in camp. Soldiers were out in full force, but they were still having difficulty holding the crowds of remnants back as they gathered around something in the center of camp.
Kiran pushed closer. Weary as he was, his large body made it easy for him to weave his way through until he reached the front line of
the crowd. An enormous number of Locke soldiers were fighting to push back the crowd enough to prevent them from viewing what lay beyond, but there was no blocking out what Kiran saw, no matter how many soldiers lined up to push the crowds back. For there, just at the edge of the camp, was a pile of bodies, all of them wearing blue Locke uniforms. They had been stacked into a grotesque mound, and at the top, a pike stuck out, a white flag waving from the top with bloodred writing too small for him to read covering the surface.
He leaned down and asked a older woman, “Do you know what happened here?”
“’Tis the night guards. They were all in their positions last night when we went to sleep. Then this morning, they were like this.”
“Do they have any suspects?” he asked.
“Oh, they would like to blame it on all of us here, ye bet on it. They would love the excuse to get rid of us all. But he signed his name like it was artwork. Called it a gift.”
“Who did?” Kiran asked.
“You know,” the woman whispered, pointing a finger up at the sky. “Him.”
Kiran nodded, that awful, foreboding sensation in his gut magnifying tenfold. He had to believe this was a coincidence. There was no reason to believe this was connected to Aurora’s disappearance. He kept telling himself that. And yet … he could not shake the terrible fear that was taking root inside him.
He left the crowd to their gawking, and set out looking for familiar faces. He found a few people he recognized from their brief stay in the camps upon their arrival in Pavan. As carefully and quietly as he could, he asked around about Etel and her visits until he found someone who kept regular contact with the old woman. Her last visit had been two days ago, so she had technically been due for a visit today, but the high security had likely kept her from coming, which left Kiran with nothing to do but wait.
