“I know I may ooze power and prestige,” Aston says. “But I do occasionally need to rest.”
The confession reminds me how long it’s been since the last time I slept. Raiden spent weeks using his shattered winds to torment me with nightmares—and now I can’t sleep. Not when Gus and Audra are . . .
“What time is it?” I ask.
Arella glances at the sun. “Looks like it’s getting close to noon.”
“NOON?”
“Oh, spare us the freak-out,” Aston tells me. “We’re losing time as we head east.”
“How does that make it better?” I ask.
Aston shrugs. “If you want to move faster, we’ll have to ditch some dead weight.”
His eyes dart to Solana, and she gives him a glare that practically shoots ice beams.
“You call this ‘dead weight’?” She stretches out her arms, and all the nearby breezes sink under her skin.
“You do realize that windcatching is essentially the worst thing you can do when you’re facing the power of pain, right?” Aston asks. “What do you think will happen to all of this”—he waves his hands in front of her, outlining her curves—“if I shatter those drafts you’ve tucked away?”
The color drains from Solana’s face. “Can you really do that?”
Aston pulls aside his cloak to reveal a long row of perfectly round holes, piercing through skin and bone. “Anything can be broken.”
“Well, he won’t break me,” Solana says, calling more breezes and soaking them up.
Aston shakes his head and growls a scratchy word.
A grayish draft tangles around her, but Solana absorbs it like the others. “You were saying?”
“That is . . . unexpected,” Aston says.
He studies her so closely that Solana starts to fidget.
I save her by getting back to the much more important subject. “I think we should use pipelines for the rest of the journey.”
I hadn’t suggested the rapid wind tunnels before, because they can be unstable and deadly. They also suck worse than traveling with Captain Screeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaach.
But we’re wasting too much time.
“We’re moving faster than you think,” Aston promises. “We’ve already made it to that middle part of the country where there’s far too many cows for my liking. Kansas, is it? Or Dakota something?”
“Nebraska,” Arella murmurs.
The name feels fuzzy in my ears, matching the memory that resurfaces with it.
A hazy afternoon—the sun so bright it whites out the blue. I follow a dark-haired girl as she finds the tallest tree and climbs. I can’t see what’s in the nest, but I’m mostly there for the songs. Her voice makes me forget that I’m supposed to be afraid.
I close my eyes, trying to remember more, but my past is still too jumbled up.
Audra’s a part of it, though.
And she’s still a part of me—even if the ache I’m clinging to is growing fainter every hour.
“Are you okay?” Solana whispers, resting her too-warm hand on my shoulder. “Isn’t this where your family . . .”
I nod.
Arella clears her throat. “Actually, we’re a little to the north. But it does look the same.”
I study the field we’re standing in—rolling waves of grass and wildflowers as far as the eye can see.
It’s pretty, I guess.
But it makes me uneasy.
There’s too much sky. Too much wind. Too few places to hide.
It feels like the last place on earth for a family of sylphs to be when they’re trying to hide from Raiden—which was probably why Arella chose it.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she tells me, scratching at her arms. “If I could undo it, I would.”
“Oh please.” I kick a clump of wildflowers, sending their yellow petals scattering. “All you regret is that your husband sacrificed himself to save me.”
She doesn’t deny it.
“Well then,” Aston says, “this seems like a fitting time for my afternoon fix.”
He tangles Arella in ruined drafts, soaking up her pain as she sinks to her knees. Solana covers her ears—but I memorize each one of Arella’s screams.
“Look at you,” Aston says. “I must say, this is the darkest side I’ve ever seen in a Westerly. You’re almost smiling.”
“She deserves it.”
“Ah, yes. Pain for pain. Does that make it all better?”
It doesn’t. Just like whatever he’s doing to Arella doesn’t make his holes disappear.
But it helps.
Aston smiles. “You definitely got some of your girl’s fire when you bonded, didn’t you? Might keep you alive—if we learn to use it. So why don’t you make one of those fancy wind spike things and we’ll see what you’ve got?”
“We don’t have time to play around,” I argue.
Aston points to where Arella lies curled up in the long grass. “She won’t be up to traveling for a bit. And I’m not getting you anywhere near Brezengarde until I know you can defend yourself. So be a good boy and make a wind spike.”
He claps his hands like I’m some puppy he’s teaching a new trick.
I hate myself for obeying.