I shout for Os’s help, but his legs are pinned under a giant boulder. Which leaves only me.
Taking on two Living Storms all by myself probably isn’t the smartest idea—especially with the winds mad at me and with a superwounded left arm.
But I can still hear Solana screaming.
I’ve ruined her life a million different ways.
This time I’m going to save it.
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 all 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 air. 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.