Let the Storm Break

CHAPTER 42 AUDRA

I shouldn’t be surprised.

My mother’s sold me out to Raiden twice before.

But this time I won’t be getting away.

Before I could react, Raiden tangled me in a web of sharp red winds, and even with my shield, the cruel drafts shock like lightning every time he steps away from me.

“I’m so sorry,” my mother keeps telling me. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” I tell her, earning myself a laugh from Raiden.

“When I have control, the only choice is mine,” he tells me, stepping away and letting the lightning bonds strike so hard, I feel like my skin is melting off my bones.

I crawl to his feet, unable to believe I’m choosing to be close to him. But I have to stop the pain.

He crouches in front of me as I gasp for breath. “If it eases the sting of Mommy’s betrayal, you should know that you didn’t have a choice either. I’m impressed that Os figured out how to build a Maelstrom—but he missed its true brilliance. It’s the perfect trap. No way to sense anyone’s presence. No winds to call to your aid. All I needed was something to draw you here, and something to keep your army distracted so I could catch my prize unguarded.”

“Are you telling me that all the Gales you ruined to make your Living Storms—all the innocent people who died or lost their homes today—were just a distraction to catch me?”

Raiden grins. “Makes you feel rather special, doesn’t it?”

Actually, it makes me physically ill.

“Why me? I’m not—”

“A Westerly?” Raiden finishes for me. “No, you’re even better. You were the one who stirred up that haboob in my valley—a brilliant play, by the way. And that, right there, is what makes you so special. You talk like a Westerly. But you think like me.”

“I’m nothing like you!”

My outburst only makes Raiden smile wider. “Breaking you is going to be fun. Though I had been hoping to catch your little boyfriend as leverage. I guess I can settle for the boy who thought he could kill me.”

He stands, and I brace for another jolt, but he only turns to where Gus lies unconscious, tied in the same horrible winds.

Blood streams from a dark gash above Gus’s temple, and it’s hard to tell how deep the damage goes. His face looks disturbingly pale.

Raiden kicks him in the chest, filling the cave with the sound of breaking bone. “Every time you don’t cooperate, I’ll punish him. Understood?”

When I don’t answer, he grabs my fallen wind spike and presses the sharp end over Gus’s heart.

I take particular pleasure in whispering the command to unravel it.

The Maelstrom devours the drafts as soon as they uncoil. Except the Westerly, which I wrap around Gus like a shield, relieved when it obeys.

“You think you’re clever, don’t you?” Raiden asks, grabbing my neck and lifting me off the ground.

His grip crushes through my weary shield, cutting off my breathing. My vision blurs and my lungs scream for air, but I don’t try to fight.

Let it end here—now—when all the secrets are still safe.

But Raiden tosses me backward, letting me cough and heave as the lightning shoots through my veins.

Spots dance across my vision, and I feel myself start to slip away when the shocks fade and rough hands pull me to my feet.

“Grab the boy,” Raiden orders his Stormer as he shoves me toward the pathway that brought me here.

“Wait—we had a deal!” my mother shouts behind us.

She shakes the chains in her cage and I almost want to laugh.

Doesn’t she realize? Trusting Raiden is like trusting her.

It always ends the same.

Raiden hisses something in his wicked language, and the winds in the Maelstrom double their speed.

Then all I hear are her screams.

“I wouldn’t get any ideas,” Raiden tells me when the exit comes into sight. “Even if you can fight through the pain of your bonds, they’ll drag you back to me. And then I’ll make you watch as I break your friend apart piece by piece.”

He’s going to do that anyway.

Just like he did to Aston.

And I . . .

I have to be strong.

I have to endure anything.

I accepted this responsibility when I let Vane into my heart.

I have no choice but to protect it.

There’s always a choice, I can’t help thinking, and the weakness makes me sick.

But what makes me far, far sicker is that I’m not nearly as sick as I should be.

Vane could barely function when he thought about sharing his language with Os—yet here I am, feeling only slightly queasy at the thought of giving it to Raiden?

Clearly, my Westerly instincts aren’t as strong as I’m going to need them to be—and if I can’t count on them to fuel me, how will I find the strength to resist Raiden’s interrogation?

If I’d been holding out any hope that Vane would sense my danger and save us, it’s crushed when I set foot on the sand. The desert is empty, save for the vultures, and even the Westerlies have all been frightened away.

We’re on our own.

There will be no escape.

But I guess it’s better this way.

Better that Vane stays safe.

If there were a way to spare Gus, I would give it, but I can at least spare my loyal shield. I whisper the command to release it, begging it to flee far away.

The draft ignores me, clinging like a second skin. And in that simple act of loyalty, I find a hint of strength.

“Feels like your army has done better against my Storms than they should have,” Raiden mumbles as he stretches out his palms to test the air.

“Good.”

“That’s a brave word coming from a hostage.”

“Well, I’m braver than you think. You can take me and you can torture me. But I will never let you change me.”

He barks a laugh, and the sharp sound stirs the vultures. “That’s what they all say. Until I find their weakness.”

He glances at Gus, then back at me, the threat impossible to miss.

He turns to give orders to his Stormer, and I realize this is it—the last few seconds I’ll have before he drags me away to his fortress.

Thousands of regrets race through my mind, but I focus on the breeze that’s suddenly tickling my skin.

It’s a strong wind.

An Easterly.

And as it braves the treacherous skies of the Maelstrom just to bring comfort to me, I close my eyes and let myself believe it’s my father. Come to say goodbye. Come to give me peace.

But when I listen to his song I realize he’s brought me a message. The same advice over and over, turning more urgent with each repetition.

Time to let go.

I have no idea what he means, but the next time I inhale, the breeze slips inside with my breath, pressing into the darkest places in my mind.

The melody swirls around my head, and as I focus on the simple verse, something starts to stir.

A pressure.

A gathering.

It’s not my essence.

It’s not any part of me.

And as the mounting rush shocks me with warm tingles, I realize what the wind is telling me to let go of.

Who to let go of.

The Easterly’s song turns mournful, echoing my grief as it whispers the command I’ll need to give.

It’s a familiar word. A word that’s defined the last ten years of my life.

But I can’t make myself say it.

It’s too much.

The wind is asking too much.

I’ve given everything—suffered anything.

Why must I lose the one thing I’ve taken for myself?

Protection, the Easterly whispers, and the word is like fog, thick and numbing as it clouds my resistance and cools my rage.

This will break my heart—and likely break me.

But I know it has to be done.

I give myself one final second to cling to the only thing that’s ever brought any joy or hope to my life. Then I close my eyes and whisper the command to rip it all away.

“Sacrifice.”

The draft inside me splits into a million blades—slicing and slashing and shredding every part of me until there’s nothing but splinters.

The warm, calm shards slip with my ragged breath and vanish like wisps of smoke. The cold, angry pieces cling, hardening into a wall that holds in all the emptiness inside me.

“Stop!” Raiden shouts, snarling something in his wicked language and drowning me in a flood of arctic winds.

They shove and beat and batter my body, trying to force back together what’s already lost.

But it’s gone.

It’s all gone.

Everything that matters is gone.