Frantic pounding on the door interrupts my question, and I run to answer it, with my mom hot on my heels.
Gus stands there, wide-eyed and out of breath. His hair is halfway unraveled from his braid and his uniform is soaked with sweat.
“You have to come with me,” he says, dragging Solana and me outside. “We’re under attack.”
CHAPTER 20
AUDRA
I
have to get inside that mountain.
I don’t care how dangerous it is, or how much the vanished winds and the screeching air warn of something indescribably evil.
Raiden is here.
I doubt Aston knew that Raiden would be making a rare excursion from his fortress, but this must be why the Easterlies dragged me here. And even if it’s just a lucky twist of chance, I have to take advantage of it.
This is not a time for caution.
This is a time to lay it all on the line.
I watch as Raiden leads his Stormers into the mountain, surprised that none of them remain outside to stand guard. It seems like a mistake—though I’m grateful they’ve made it. But then I remember that this is Raiden.
He’s not some prince who inherited the crown at birth. He fought for it, killed for it, clawed his way up from the bottom to become the most powerful Sylph alive.
He doesn’t need his Stormers to protect him. Only to do his dirty work.
Which makes me more determined than ever to take him down.
I can feel the worry in my Westerly shield, but I whisper for it to stay calm as I count the seconds, waiting until five hundred have passed before I dart out of my hiding place. I scan the basin as I run, half expecting a Stormer to jump out of the shadows. But when I reach the entrance it truly is empty. No signs of life except the fresh footprints on the ground.
All I have to do is follow them.
My head screams at me to abort—call for backup—or at least give myself more time to prepare. But I can’t risk losing this chance.
I reach up and unravel my braid, knowing it will be safer not to look like a Gale. Then I take a deep breath and step into the darkness.
The path turns narrow as it slopes into the earth, and the sound of muffled scraping fills the dark void. There’s no light to guide me, so I walk with one hand on the sandy wall, surprised when I feel the coarse grains shifting under my fingertips. The entire tunnel is somehow rotating around me, like I’m walking through a cyclone that’s been sucked into the ground.
A Maelstrom.
I’ve heard rumors of Raiden’s evil prisons, but I’d always hoped they weren’t true.
Now I understand why the winds are so skittish.
Maelstroms devour the wind.
My Westerly shield trembles, but I promise to keep it safe. If the Maelstrom could detect its presence, the draft would’ve already been consumed. Still, the breeze on my skin keeps resisting, trying to drag me back to higher ground with every step I take.
The air turns cool and damp, and I’m starting to think the pathway has no end when a dim yellow light fades into view. I press myself as tightly against the wall as I can and listen for signs of life. It’s hard to tell over the scraping sand, but I don’t hear any voices or footsteps, and I see no flickering shadows.
I creep forward, making my way into a small, round room where I have to cover my mouth to block my scream.
Dark chains dangle from the ceiling, each one shackled around body—though they really aren’t bodies anymore. They’re gray-blue withered shells that hang shrunken and shriveled in their dingy Gale Force uniforms, their faces so wrinkled and twisted that I can barely tell they’re sylphs. I’ve never seen this kind of decay. It’s like they’re raisins in the sun, like they’ve been sucked dry or . . .
I gag when I notice flecks of dust breaking off their contorted limbs and sinking into the slowly spinning walls.
The Maelstrom is eating the prisoners alive.
I have no words for that level of evil—and this has to be what Aston wanted me to see.
I’ve never felt so hopeless.
Especially when I realize I know one of the victims.
It’s impossible to recognize his rotted face—but Teman always pinned a golden sun above the Gale Force symbol on his sleeve.
He was my Southerly trainer.
We . . . didn’t get along.
Teman was all about joy and rest and ease—every longing I didn’t want to have. He even tried to convince me that I should wait to become a guardian. Take a few years for myself before I swore an oath to serve.
And yet, four years later he was the first Gale to vote in my favor at my guardian hearing and my staunchest advocate when my mother voted against.
He believed in me, trusted me, and as I stare at his gnarled, crumbling corpse, I feel like I failed him.
If I’d pushed Vane harder—taken more risks to get him to have the breakthroughs earlier—would it have mattered?
Would Teman still be alive?
I smear my tears away as I shove the dark thought out of my mind.
I can’t focus on what-ifs.