Storm Siren

by Mary Weber

  The look I give him when I step through the doorway could raze an entire water kingdom. I walk in the direction of my room, slowly.

  Growling, he pushes past me, and I wait until he’s far enough ahead before trailing him up the two flights of stairs and slipping into a hall recess. There, I pause for the various council members to file by. When the last disappears into Adora’s study, I bolt for the door and slide my hand in the way to keep it from closing.

  “We need to send help to the wounded,” the king’s voice muffles through the opening.

  “It’s unlikely there are many wounded left. You saw those explosions!”

  “Besides, we don’t have enough people to spare, Your Majesty. If we don’t use the soldiers for battle, we’ll seal our own fate.”

  “We can’t just leave them! Those were villages they targeted. And can someone please explain to me how Bron knew where each of them was located?”

  “I’ll take Nym and Colin and start at the closest village hit.” Eogan.

  “No,” Adora snaps. “I think it’d be better to have the two of them wait a couple days, Eogan, and then follow through on what you and I have planned. Even you told me—”

  I curl my hand into a fist and I swear the magic from the valley sparks through it. I head for my room, shaking so hard it’s near impossible to open my door once I reach it. A couple of days? No rescue for those people? How can they be so callous toward their own citizens suffering less than an hour’s ride from here? And Eogan . . .

  I can’t stay here. I can’t sit in my room and wait for who knows what—more betrayal from him or Lord Myles? Are both of them spies?

  I change into my leathers, nearly tearing my dress in the process of getting it off, and slip downstairs, listening as messengers run through the halls shouting orders above the servants’ clatter. I pull my hood up and leave through a side door to put Haven’s reins on.

  The place where the bomb hit is less than three terrameters away, but every road between Adora’s and the High Court is swamped with fleeing people and soldiers trying to hold back the panic. Riding bareback, I move onto the smaller farm paths, but even there, some of the guests from Adora’s party have gotten their coaches stuck in the mud. I keep my face hidden and continue riding.

  It doesn’t take long to reach the ridge I’m looking for. When I do, the area on the hillside opposite me isn’t just bathed in fire. It’s spewing a blasted inferno of destruction as wide as the village that stood there. Flames lick through wood structures, billowing black smoke so hot and thick that Haven bucks and refuses to go farther. Tying her to a fence post, I sprint the rest of the way on foot, but even as I’m getting closer, it’s obvious why they’re not sending soldiers to help. There’s nothing left to rescue.

  I run for it, the magic from the valley surging through my veins. Surprising me with the ease at which I can pull down the rain and pour it over the demolished structures and boiling dirt, sizzling as the smoke rises to darken the clouds. Not until I reach the village edge does it occur to me to try to draw in more clouds from the coast and send them down the crescent. Maybe it’ll deter the airships, or at least put out the fires at the other bomb sites.

  With the rain stamping the flames out in front of me, I whisper in enough clear air to breathe. Then, tugging my cloak over my nose and mouth, I head toward the first smoky ruins to search for anyone left.

  Then the second.

  Then the third.

  The higher up the hill I go, the more slippery the ground becomes and the thicker the smoke wraps around my throat—the steam and billows rising almost as fast as I can push them away with the rain-soaked breeze. I’m coughing by the time I reach the fourth home attached to what probably used to be a marketplace.

  Searching through the dark, my burning eyes almost miss the hand reaching out from a charred doorway. My chest tightens at what I’ll find, until I hear the feeble groan.

  An elderly man. Trapped beneath a roof beam. I rush over and kneel, then bring in fresh air to keep the smoke off his face. He lifts his hand—flopping it around until I catch it in mine. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

  He lifts my fingers to his cheek and sighs, and I sit there and watch him stare at the tears tumbling from my eyes, drenching my face, my clothes, the ground until, eventually, the light in his gaze fades, releasing his soul along with his breath.

  I press his lids closed. “Go with the creator.”

  Wiping my cheeks, I force myself to stand, to move on in search of others. Except I rise too quickly because suddenly the world is spiraling, and two seconds later I’m bending over to vomit.

  When it’s finished, I wipe my face on my cloak and continue forward, using light cast by the cloud-ringed moon and what’s left of the quickly fading flames. But each home I come to is filled only with the dead. Men. Women. Children.

  I’m halfway through the village and hacking and coughing and calling in more wind when a strange noise emerges above the rain and sizzling buildings. A loud whirring. I look up and flick away the smoke high enough to see another one of the Bron airships.

  It’s heading for the High Court.

  Anger. Fury. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t even think. I flick my hand and watch a lightning bolt strike the hull. One moment apologizing to those inside and the next cursing them for what they’ve done to this village. To Faelen.

  Within seconds the airship explodes midair, as if a pocket of gas was ignited, and the entire thing is flying apart in an ear-piercing, fiery ball of red. Parts and debris disperse in every direction, and then, abruptly, it’s all coming down. Except instead of falling for the fields, half of it’s thrown right above the village, and right above me.

  Run.

  Enormous chunks of wreckage slice through the air, and I’m scrambling back the way I came just as one lands two feet in front of me. I jump and keep going. Another lands to the side, and then more, followed by splintered fragments that rain down like metal daggers.

  I lunge beneath a barn’s overhanging roof, but not before a shard slices my elbow and another rips open my leg. I cry out and cover my head, as if that will save me from anything else crashing through the rickety, burnt wood. Nausea rises again and the smoky coughs are chugging up my lungs, shredding my throat. I pull in fresh air from the valley and wait until the sounds of falling debris lessen. When I look up, small fiery bits are all that’s left. They float to the ground, burning out one by one in the pelting rain.

  Fiery bits of ash that used to be people—I try to squelch that thought, but it seeps in anyway. I killed them intentionally, in anger. Before they could kill others, I tell myself. But their lack of innocence doesn’t make it okay. Just like Eogan knew. Just like he trained me for.

  With a cursed sob, I pick myself up and start dragging my leg in the direction of Haven.

  The ground’s too slick and I slip once. Then again. Then I’m back up, coughing and stumbling forward, only to squint at what I think is a shadow walking toward me through the wreckage.

  A shadow with emerald eyes.

  Eogan’s gaze smolders, taking in the scene as he crunches across broken glass and smoking wood to where I’m standing. I stagger forward and look down at the dribbles of dark blood oozing from my elbow. They patter on the dirt like rain.

  Eogan’s exclamation is not meant for female ears as I crumple to the ground, and the next moment he’s at my side. Even though I despise his lying, traitorous self, my aching heart says his face is still the most beautiful thing in my world as he’s poring over me, searching for injuries. He grabs my hand and inspects the blood, then pulls my chin up to examine my face.

  “How bad are you hurt?” But before I can respond, his gaze falls to the torn leathers on my thigh. His expression churns.

  Waiting for it . . . For him to yell. To scold. To do whatever.

  Instead, he pulls his shirt off and rips it into lengthy shreds, grimacing when I cry out as he binds my leg and elbow.

  When h
e’s finished, his gaze meets mine and sticks a moment.

  “I killed them,” I whisper. “In the airship.”

  “You did what you had to.”

  “I should’ve found another way.” But even as I say it, I know there was no other way. This was different from the redheaded girl. The grim set of his mouth says he knows it too. This is how I will live with my conscience.

  “How’d you know I was here?”

  Another explosion of falling timbers, and Eogan grabs his sword and slips his arm around my waist. He pulls me up before muttering heatedly, “Because I know you. Really, what the kracken were you thinking, Nym?”

  I shake my head and try to draw in more air, but suddenly I’m not focusing well. “I had to help the people.”

  He starts walking with me. “Who, Nym? Look around. They’re all dead!”

  They’re all dead.

  In the fire. The smoke. The rain.

  And I killed some of them.

  I do look around.

  And abruptly I am five years old with my storm raging overhead.

  And all I see is my home in flames and my parents in the old man’s dying face as my blood soaks in and makes a spattered mess all over the binding on my arm.

  I jerk away from him. They have to be here. I need them to be here.

  “Nym, you’re exhausted and we have to go. Come on.”

  But I can’t leave again. Maybe I can save them. Maybe I can tell them I’m sorry and show I have control now.

  I reach out, but it’s Eogan’s hands, not theirs, that find me and start dragging me back. Because he doesn’t care—for me, for them, for any of us. I squirm—pushing, pressing to get away. “You don’t understand. I have to save them!”

  “Nym, you can’t save anyone. They’re all dead!”

  What? For a moment my head swims, my thoughts melting into shadow. No, he’s wrong. He only wants to take me away from my white, snowy world. My five-year-old self is kicking and screaming and I’m half blind pushing him off again. “I have to find them! I have to help my parents!”

  And then he’s yelling, too, but his words don’t make sense and, abruptly, the pain from my leg hits the raging torrent in my head. My screams cut off as my lungs suffocate from the smoke.

  He yanks me against his chest and pins me there. And for one moment I swear I hear grief break his voice when he murmurs, “Your parents are dead, Nym. Because I helped kill them.”

  My entire world dissolves into darkness.

  CHAPTER 26

  SILENCE.

  I open my eyes to four stone walls and a drippy ceiling that, at some point during the night, spread its dampness to the blanket covering me. My breath rasps and when I try to sit up, my lungs catch fire. The resulting coughing fit sends the cut on my thigh screaming and my mind lunging into last night’s disaster:

  The flames.

  The dying man.

  The falling airship.

  I hack harder—until I’m scared my lungs are going to rip out—and end up on my side just as the door opens.

  I peel my swollen eyelids up.

  Adora.

  Arms crossed, mouth set in a gold-lined frown framed by perfectly erected hair and a gaze bloated with anger. “You’re awake.”

  I’m dying, my brain whimpers.

  She crosses to stand beside the bed, lips pressed, and taps her fingernail on her arm. “I doubt you can imagine how worried I was when Eogan brought you home last night. All of my time, all of my investment in you, almost vanished down the drain. I actually had to wonder if you’d survive the night with all that wheezing. And yet . . .” Her voice pitches as her fingers brush down the blanket covering my throbbing leg. “Here you are.”

  Her hand stops over my wound.

  “Which is what I like about you, Nym. Your determination to live—to survive—no matter how much trouble you cause others, nor how dreadful you treat me after everything I’ve given you. You. Still. Fight. To. Survive.” She mutters that through her teeth. Then she smiles, and it’s so fake it makes my gut flip.

  “The physician informs me you’ll be fine enough within a couple days. The leg injury’s not too deep, but we’ll need to keep up with your medicine to hold off the sepsis. Although as far as anything to ease your pain . . .” Her fingers press on my injury. “I have opted to forgo that.”

  Abruptly, her hand is digging into my wound.

  I scream. She pinches harder until I’m writhing and my curse is flaring, except there’s no charge in the air to pull energy from. How deep is this room beneath her house? Water droplets collect in a pool along the ceiling, as if I could somehow manipulate them against her.

  One, two, three more agonizing seconds and, mercifully, she relents and steps back. “You see, I need your head clear, Nym. Free of this ridiculous draw you have on Eogan, and from everything but the job I have for you.”

  My entire body is pulsing. Fading. Where is Eogan? I consider asking, but the throbbing is jumbling my thoughts.

  “King Sedric has met with Lady Isobel to negotiate the loan of her army, but in all likelihood, it’s too late. Three Bron generals have already taken a portion of Litchfell Forest and are currently holed up in a fortress there, commanding their armies. I believe our only hope is to have you and Colin buy us time by destroying that fortress and the generals within.”

  My mind’s growing hazy.

  “I’m giving you the choice, Nym. Save Faelen, or spend the rest of your days in this cell—which won’t be long when I decide to misplace the medicine and allow the sepsis to set in.”

  If she slams the door on her way out, I’ve no idea, because everything slips from consciousness.

  Drip.

  Drip.

  Drop.

  I brush a splash of moisture from my cheek.

  When I open my eyes, the ceiling is still dripping and the lantern is dimmer. Eogan is standing there studying me from a spot against the stone wall.

  From the looks of his damp shirt and tangled bangs, he’s been here awhile.

  King Odion’s twin brother.

  I turn over and stare at the mattress. I’ve a million questions to ask, but no motivation to start. How long did he say he’d been with Adora—three years? The same time period during which Bron grew bolder. And here he’s sat, privy to Faelen’s most precious secrets.

  The thought makes my stomach curdle.

  “How do you feel?” His tone rings so official I could spit.

  I don’t respond.

  A hesitation. His fingers pick up drumming against the wall. “The physician believes you’ll be steady on your feet in two days’ time. After that—”

  “I don’t care,” I say hoarsely, eliciting another tortured coughing spell that forces me into a sitting position. It lasts half a minute before abating, and I look up to find his sterile attitude has caved to concern. It grates against the massive, aching chasm in my chest. As if he has any right to worry. “How should I feel?” I mutter. Crazy? Infuriated? “And who in hulls is asking? Eogan the trainer, or Ezeoha—Bron’s heir?”

  Eogan’s jaw shifts. Tightens. “Both.”

  Right. I glance away. “Does Colin know who you are?”

  “Only you.”

  “And Isobel,” I point out in a raspy voice. “Who, by the way, I would’ve assumed was the love that broke your heart, except you didn’t look too heartbroken in her arms last night.”

  His coloring fades in direct proportion to the hardness materializing in his eyes. The finger tapping slows. “I’m aware you won’t believe this, but my heritage and past relationship are actually of little importance. What is important—”

  He’s right. I don’t believe it. “Are you a spy?”

  “I’d think you know me better than that. Although, considering the volatile situation, you’ll understand why I’d wish to keep my identity private.”

  “An interest Isobel clearly doesn’t share.”

  He frowns. “She won’t reveal it at this point.”r />
  “Except to me because—let’s see, how did she put it?—I’m ‘just grateful to be alive and too weak-minded to be a threat.’ ”

  “That’s only because she actually views you as a threat.”

  “Bolcranes,” I scoff. “Why would she, unless you’re a spy?”

  His harsh gaze flickers to my lips, where it pauses before dropping to the floor. He says nothing.

  “Is that a yes? Because for kracken’s sake, Eogan, at least have the guts to admit it! What were you doing—scouting? Trading secrets?”

  “I think you’ve read enough of Adora’s history books to know that most of my kingdom thinks I’m dead,” he says bitterly. “I chose to leave Bron rather than fight Odion for my right to rule, not expand my dominance, so don’t even attempt to judge my intentions.”

  “Right. And would those be the same intentions you had wrapped around Isobel’s body last night?”

  He utters an oath and pushes off the wall toward the door. “You’re being ridiculous.”

  Then stalls.

  He plows a hand through his black messy bangs as he turns back to me and sighs. “Look . . . Isobel was—is—a part of my past. Our fathers hoped to make a marriage of it, but clearly that didn’t happen. I’ve not seen her in the four years since I left Bron.” His glare narrows. “Now can we move on to why I’m down here?”

  “What’d she do to you?”

  A strange grief flexes across his face even as his lips curl. His breath wavers audibly, as if he’s trying to decide whether to confess or curse at me. “Let’s just say there’s more than one way to turn a person’s heart to stone,” he finally growls.

  I cross my arms. Not good enough.

  He dips his head. “Fine. I was six. My father asked Isobel to change Odion and me. Guessing accurately that our blocking abilities would protect us physically while her curse hardened our emotions. Thus making us incapable of feeling and, in his mind, the perfect pair—relying on logic rather than the influence of sentiment. He then proceeded to raise Odion in politics and me as Bron’s war general—assuming whichever of us was strongest would succeed him after his death. Except Isobel’s curse worked too well on me. By the time he died, I didn’t even care enough to fight for what, by rights, is mine as firstborn.”