I can’t think of anything to say to that. Audra keeps going anyway.
“Protecting your family became the Gale Force’s highest priority, so they assigned my parents—their top guardians—to watch them full-time. But a Stormer found them, and somewhere in the struggle to capture them they were accidentally killed. Leaving only you. The last Westerly. And up until four years ago Raiden didn’t even know you were alive. Now that he knows, he’s been tearing the world apart to find you, and you can bet if he gets his hands on you, he’ll show no mercy. Sure, he’ll be careful to keep you alive. But you’re the only thing standing between him and ultimate power. The only chance he has at satisfying his obsession. Do you think he’ll take no for an answer when he demands that you teach him?”
“But . . . I don’t know any secret language of the west wind. I didn’t even know there was a west wind until a few minutes ago—I thought there was just wind.”
Seriously, there’s no way I belong to any part of that crazy story. It has to be ripped out of some cheesy fantasy movie with a bunch of scrawny actors running around in tights, shooting arrows at each other because of some evil man trying to rule the world. That stuff doesn’t happen in real life—and it certainly doesn’t happen to me.
I’m just an average guy.
Well, okay, fine—apparently I’m a sylph, so I’m not exactly average—but still. I’m not some ultra-powerful answer to all their problems either. I’m not Superman. I don’t even like that comic.
“You’re right,” Audra says as my mind fills with horrifying images of me in tights and a stupid cape being asked to save the world like it’s no big deal. “You don’t know the Westerly tongue. Your parents chose not to teach you, thinking it would keep you safe from Raiden. But you are a Westerly. So we’re hoping the language is instinctive.”
“Hoping?” I need to move, to think this through on my feet. I stand and pace. “You’re hoping I’ll speak the language that gets everyone killed?”
“We’re hoping you’ll be the first to master the four languages. Then you’ll be powerful enough to defeat Raiden.”
I laugh, too loud and too hard, feeling the threads of my sanity stretching dangerously thin. “Oh, good, because I was afraid you were going to put pressure on me.”
It’s all too much. I can’t breathe. The choking heat beating down is nothing compared to this heavy, crushing weight Audra just dumped on me.
“Vane,” Audra says, standing and blocking me as I try to walk away.
I’m not sure where I’m going—I just have to get out of here, and I’m not above shoving her out of my way if I have to. “I can’t do this, Audra. I’m not a warrior and I can’t . . .”
I freeze when she grabs my shoulders. “I know what it’s like to have huge responsibility dropped on your back and to feel like you can’t bear it. But you have to remember, Raiden murdered your family.”
There’s that word again. Murdered. It shakes everything inside me, making it twist and thrash with hate.
“You have the power to stop him,” she says. “That’s why my father gave his life to save you. You had to live.”
She looks at me then, like she thinks I’m some sort of savior—or miracle.
The Miracle Child.
Apparently, that stupid newspaper article wasn’t that far off. Didn’t see that one coming.
“Wait—Raiden didn’t know I was alive until a few years ago, right?” Hope calms the shaky, dizzy feeling. “They ran an article about me surviving the tornado. It was just in the local paper in a Podunk town, but Raiden would’ve seen that, wouldn’t he? So he must’ve investigated me already and realized I’m not anyone special.”
That sounds much more likely than me being some sort of hero.
“Raiden had no reason to investigate. Not once the echoes reached him.” She looks at the sky. “When we pass on, the winds carry an echo of who we used to be—for a time, at least. My mother knew we’d need to hide from Raiden, so she made echoes for you, me, and her, and sent them along with the ones for your parents, my father, and the Stormer. Raiden had no reason to doubt the wind’s report. The wind doesn’t lie.”
“If the wind doesn’t lie, how did your mom pull that one off?”
“She used our losses. When someone you love dies, part of you dies with them. It’s why you’re never the same after losing someone. And the winds that touch you carry the loss with them. It’s not exactly like an echo, but she tweaked them somehow, bent them and changed them with her gift until they were close enough to convince Raiden of our demise.”
Just when I think my weirdness meter is maxed out, she finds a way to push me further.