“Fine,” she whispered.
“What was that?” he asked.
Scowling, she shoved his hand off her shoulder and said, “You heard me. No need to humiliate me any further. My current situation covers that sufficiently, I think.”
A tall, skinny boy with startling red hair and a charming grin popped up beside them. He was all freckles and long limbs, probably near to her age. He held out a waterskin to Locke and said beneath his breath, “She might remind you of your sister, but I don’t think those fond feelings go both ways.”
His sister? Locke growled, “Bait, enough.”
Bait. The boy’s name was Bait. It appeared her haphazardly decided nickname was a good fit for this group after all.
Locke jerked the waterskin out of the boy’s hand and held it out to Rora. “Drink. Unless you’re too humiliated by us helping you.”
Jinx slapped the back of his head, but he barely budged, the waterskin still dangling in his outstretched hand. She took the water, mumbling a sorry and a thank-you. She hated feeling helpless. When her magic hadn’t manifested, she tried to make up for the shortcoming in every other possible way—whether it was through her studies or the physical training she did with the guards.
All eyes were on her as she took her first sip. The cool liquid was such a relief that she took a bigger gulp.
“Go easy,” Locke said. “Little sips or you might get sick.”
She wanted to gulp the whole thing down and pour a second container over her face, but she did as he said. He was trying to be kind, apparently because she reminded him of his sister. There was a sinking in her belly, and she returned to her water.
When she had nearly emptied the waterskin, the bearded man returned with food. Bread and berries and some kind of cooked brown meat on a stick. The bread was stale on the outside but soft and warm on the inside. The berries were familiar, and she picked at those next. As she lifted up the meat for her first bite, she lost the battle with the blush spreading over her cheeks. Everyone was watching, as if they didn’t trust her to feed herself. Gingerly, she took some of the meat between her teeth and pulled. It was a little greasy, but a strong savory flavor burst over her tongue, and before she could help it, she moaned in satisfaction.
Locke grinned, and she nearly moaned again in mortification.
“Ran is a good cook. The best,” Locke said, and the blush on her face burned hotter. Even though she immediately wanted to take another bite, she paused and said, “Thank you.” That was to Locke. Then she found Ransom. Despite his hulking size, he still looked relatively young. Somewhere north of twenty but shy of thirty. “It’s delicious. Thank you.”
He smiled, teeth appearing amid the reddish-brown mass of facial hair, but didn’t say anything back.
“So … are you all hunters?” she asked.
Locke nodded. “More or less. We’ve all got different skills, but it takes all of us to make it happen. You’ve met Jinx, but this is Duke.” An old man she hadn’t noticed before stepped out of the corner. Her thoughts were scattered, but he seemed familiar. But certainly she would have remembered an old man with a long beard, braided hair, and leather armor. The extensive webbing of scars on his arms added to that image. This man had lived a warrior’s life. Locke continued: “Duke’s the one in charge. He brought us together and taught us to hunt. You met Ransom and Bait and Sly is—”
“Over here.” The voice came from the far corner of the tent, and Rora craned her head to see a slim girl with dark skin and curly hair cut close to her scalp. Quiet and unassuming, Sly had light, intense eyes that stood out starkly against her dark complexion.
“Everyone,” Locke said, “this is Roar.”
She watched his face for any hint that he knew her true identity but saw none. She cleared every bit of the food on her plate, and only then realized how cold she was. She laid the plate to the side, and shoved her fingers beneath her thighs to stop them from trembling.
“Here,” Locke said, reaching into one of the leather pouches that hung off his person. “Cold front settled in while we were sleeping.”
He handed her a small glass sphere and inside was a glowing red ember from a firestorm. Between her palms, the glass was deliciously warm. “It’s called an eternal ember. If you keep it away from the elements, a firestorm ember will burn forever.”
It was incredible. How had she missed so much of her own world? All of her life, she had been taught that there were the Stormlings and the ungifted. No in between. And now here were these people who hunted storms and somehow had gained magic of their own. She had thought that only the most extraordinary Stormlings could brave the danger of an unknown storm. People like Cassius who, with all those Stormhearts he wore along his spine, probably had more affinities than almost anyone else in the world. But before she fainted, Locke had said he was born without any magic at all.
She had come here for answers to Cassius’s secrets, and had uncovered far more than she had hoped. Rora stayed lost in thought for so long that when she looked up, all the hunters had moved away except Locke.
“You know,” he said, his voice low enough for only her to hear, “I was an orphan when Duke took me in. I was alone, getting by on the streets of Locke by doing whatever I could to survive. Duke changed that. Gave me a purpose, a way to build a life. If you need help, there are people who could help you. I could help you.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted.
His mouth settled in a tight line, but his eyes were kind.
“I mean it, Roar. We leave at sunrise tomorrow for our next hunt on the way to Taraanar. I don’t know when we’ll be back here. Could be months or a year. If there’s something I can do—money or food or protection—if there’s something you need, please ask.”
Rora slipped her hand over the tightly curled fist resting on his knee. She wanted to tell him that she was more than fine. She was better than she’d ever been because for the first time since she was twelve, she knew the taste of hope. If these people and this place existed, maybe she didn’t have to marry Cassius to keep her kingdom. Maybe there was another way. She opened her mouth to assure him, but a long, deep horn call cut through the peace of the tent before she could utter a word.
She knew that sound, and her skin prickled with dread. It was not the same signal as yesterday but a different horn they blew when they hung new warning flags on the turrets of the four storm towers, signaling a change of season. They had been yellow for the duration of the Slumber season—a color that told citizens that while storms were possible, they were unlikely. A red flag meant that storms were probable and people should be on alert for the emergency signals. A black flag meant that the Rage season had come, and large storms were both imminent and likely to be frequent.
Locke’s mouth formed a curse, but she could not hear it over the second sounding of the horn. She jumped to her feet and ran outside. Her jaw dropped. The Eye was empty. All the magic of the night before was gone, only the booths left behind like the skeleton of some majestic, mythical creature. The dark tarp still covered most of the opening overhead, but she could see bits of pink and purple sky peeking in at the corners and along the sides. Dawn.
Rora let out a string of curse words that would have gotten her disowned if her mother heard, and began to run. Locke yelled after her, but she could not wait. She had stayed out all night, and it would be a miracle if her absence had not been discovered.
Rora skidded to a stop in front of what she hoped was the entrance she’d used the night before. With the stalls empty, it was hard to be certain.
“One more day!” Locke yelled after her. “You know where to find me before we leave if you change your mind!”
She looked back a final time at the hunter who had changed everything. He looked tall and menacing from afar, but he had been kind to her. And his mere existence shattered everything she thought she knew about the world. She lifted her hand in a wave and then ducked into the tunnel.
As soon as she stepped
out into the dilapidated neighborhood that hid the market, her eyes sought out the turrets. Her throat pinched when she saw the new flag. Black.
Slumber had officially ended, and the Rage season had arrived.
It was not enough to punish her children. Rezna had given them a gift, and they betrayed her. And with the Time of Tempests, she purged the first tribes of their magic, stripping them the way they stripped the land. But death was not enough to soothe her rage. So the storms still come to this day.
—The Origin Myths of Caelira
7
Novaya glanced at the sun through the window. It was well past sunrise, and Aurora had not returned. She had known it was a mistake—all of it. She should not have let the princess go. And before that, she should have refused the prince and his coins. But the two gold coins he gave was more than she made in a week, and as someone who lived life ready to flee at a moment’s notice, having gold saved was imperative.
Wracked with guilt and worry, Nova had stayed hidden in an alcove of the servants’ wing all night, waiting for Aurora to return. Her eyelids were heavy, and her heart hadn’t stopped racing since the sun came up.
The prince had returned an hour past midnight, his full coin purse clinking with each heavy step. Nova had watched the door to the shelters at the end of the hall, waiting for Rora to follow once the prince disappeared from sight. But she never came. Something terrible must have happened.
Nova’s anxiety was hard to control on the best days. She would lie awake at night, consumed by thoughts of all the things that could go wrong the next day—little things like sewing a stitch wrong and losing her chance to become a full-time seamstress rather than a servant or massive things like accidentally burning the palace to the ground. Her mind would begin to unfurl elaborate disastrous scenarios in which one small mistake led to a dozen more, and her carefully constructed world would crumble around her. And when her emotions raged out of control, something inside her, something even harder to leash, raged too.
Night had gone, and the halls filled with the bustle of servants heading to their posts for the morning. Nova should go and admit her crime to the queen, so that soldiers could be sent out to search for Aurora. Already, she could be lying somewhere dead or dying, and it was all Nova’s fault.
She would almost certainly face banishment for her admission, and far worse if something had truly happened to the kingdom’s heir. A tingle of heat stroked up her spine, and Nova immediately doused her emotions, locking them away behind the imagined door she’d fashioned as a child. Most days, that door was all that stood between her and arrest, so she guessed in that respect, today was no different from any other day.
She had spent hours upon hours agonizing over the control of her magic, knowing one slip and the military would make sure she disappeared, and now she’d been felled by something akin to gossip. She did not know whether disappearing would mean death or imprisonment; it was not as if she could ask questions about the others who had disappeared without raising suspicions about herself.
She sighed, knowing that she could wait no longer. Perhaps she would only face banishment. The thought was still terrifying but easier to accept than death. She had no influence over storms, but her … gift gave her a better chance to survive the wilds than most. As she turned to go, a commotion down the hall drew her attention. Amid a group of women leaving their rooms was someone tall, completely covered by a large brown cloak.
Thank the skies. The women surrounding the princess had begun to whisper; a few brave ones voiced their suspicions louder. Nova saw a plump older woman, who worked as a laundress, square her shoulders and head Aurora’s way.
Bolting down the hall, Nova called out, “There you are! I’ve been looking for you everywhere! Late on the first day. Mistress Carrovain is furious.”
The crowd of women parted for Nova, and no one interfered when she began to lead Aurora away. Nova might have been just a servant, but her mother was one of the queen’s favored cooks. And her father, though too ill to work now, had been Prince Alaric’s valet. Her own newly acquired position as an assistant to the royal seamstress came with a touch of respect too.
Aurora did not fight her pull. This too had always been easier with Aurora. Nova avoided touch as much as possible, afraid that she would slip and hurt someone again. But she would never hurt Rora. She trusted herself that much at least.
The two did not speak until they were in the royal wing. The princess slowed to a stop, slipping back the hood of her cloak. She pulled at the scarf around her head, freeing that famous skyfire-bright hair, and said, “Skies, Nova. You saved me.”
Anger, swift and potent, kicked wide the door she tried to keep closed. And Nova’s fisted palms grew painfully hot. She hissed, “The prince returned hours ago. Where have you been? I was about to hand myself over to the authorities for getting the Stormling heir killed.”
Aurora’s eyes widened, and Nova clenched her teeth, knowing her outburst was not only inappropriate but out of character. Nova had always been the calm and cautious one when they’d been friends as children, while Rora had been as wild as a storm in a little girl’s dress. Nova had been all too aware of the consequences of revealing herself. She might have been born with magic same as Aurora, but long ago, her kind of magic had been deemed dirty, evil even. After all, it was people like her that caused the Time of Tempests.
“I did not mean to stay out so long. I lost the prince last night,” Aurora answered. “But I met someone who hunts storms. A whole crew of them in fact. That place was … spectacular.”
Nova knew the crown’s stance on the forbidden magics—they pretended they no longer existed, that the first tempests had wiped out all who wielded elemental magic in the first tribes, and only the Stormling ancestors had been blessed by the goddess to carry magic now. When proof arose to the contrary, it disappeared. They applied the same logic and solutions to the mercenary crews who harvested raw storm magic in the wildlands. But everyone knew other magics existed, even if they pretended otherwise. Nova had assumed that type of information would have been discussed between the queen and her daughter.
“I don’t understand why you were so afraid,” Rora said. “I’m going back. Tonight. There’s so much more I want to know.”
Nova swallowed the aggravated curse that threatened at the tip of her tongue. As Aurora pushed opened the door to her rooms, Nova followed and insisted, “You can’t! It’s too dangerous.”
The princess eyed Nova over her shoulder, and Nova knew an inquisition was coming. Even as a child, Princess Aurora had never asked a question without five more following the first.
“What is too dangerous?”
The question did not come from Aurora; the voice was decidedly deeper. On the far side of the room, lounging casually on a settee, was the Prince of Locke. His suspicious gaze roamed over the princess first and then wandered to Nova, his eyes narrowing. Rora, impetuous as always, did not even attempt a diplomatic response. She squared her shoulders, as Nova had seen her do when she threw knives with the soldiers, and asked, “What are you doing in my rooms?”
Prince Cassius reminded Nova of the poisonous snakes that would lie in wait in her desert homeland—deceptively calm but ready to strike at a moment’s notice. Even his movements were slow and deliberate, as if trying not to alert prey to his presence.
“I have news.” He let those words settle for a moment, and Aurora stiffened. “I asked your mother’s permission to be the one to give it to you. But when I knocked on your door, no one answered.”
“So you decided to enter my rooms without permission?”
The prince didn’t appear at all fazed by the venom clinging to Aurora’s words. In fact, he grinned. “One of your maids let me in when she came to start a fire. I assure you, I intended no harm.”
“Good intentions do not negate harm.”
His smile faded then, and Nova’s mind filled in the hiss of a poisonous snake about to attack.
He asked, ?
??What’s wrong? Where were you? And what is dangerous?” The last question was said in a demanding growl. The words weren’t even directed at Nova, but even so nerves jumped in her belly and a flare of blazing heat followed before she tamped it down. It had been a difficult morning, and already her skin was dotted with perspiration from the flashes of fire that she’d been unable to rein in.
Aurora turned away from the prince, brows flat with agitation. “Nova, can you help me?”
The last place Nova wanted to be was between two angry royals, both of whom knew enough to turn her over to the authorities. But she stepped farther into the room and closed the door behind her anyway.
“Wait outside,” Aurora told Cassius. “We can talk after I change.” Her tone was curt and cold, and Nova kept her eyes fixed on the ground as the prince grudgingly went out into the hallway. When the door was closed, Aurora stomped into her bedroom, and Nova followed.
“I’m so sorry,” Nova whispered. “I had no idea he was here, or I would have warned you.”
Aurora pinched the bridge of her nose and stayed standing that way for several long moments, her eyes shut tight. Then all at once, she jumped into action. She dragged the brown cloak up and over her head, followed by her nightgown. Nova rushed to help her change into a blue linen dress. It was plain by royal standards, but Aurora had never been the type to care about fashion, and she was beautiful enough for it not to matter.
“Tell me you won’t go back there,” Nova whispered as she fastened a final hook at the back of Rora’s neck.
Aurora hesitated. “I can’t do that.” She spun to Nova and waited expectantly. “Tell me what you know.”
Nova pressed her lips together. She’d come this far. There was little harm in telling her more. She sighed and whispered, “The people who go there? They’re either desperate or…”