As soon as I form the spike, Aston snatches it away—but I shout, “Come,” in Westerly and the spike snaps back to my hand.
“I bet you think that gives you an advantage, don’t you?” Aston asks.
Before I can respond, he grabs my spike and gags me with one of his ruined winds.
“Now try to call your weapon back.” He points the wind spike at my heart. “Oh wait, you’re dead. Pity.”
For a second I wonder if he’s really going to impale me. Solana must be worried too, because she drags Aston back.
“Oh, relax, Princess. If I wanted him dead, he would be. I’m merely trying to show him how pointless his little tricks are against Raiden’s methods.”
He hisses another command and my gag unravels.
“Let’s assume for a moment that you manage to hold on to your weapon and get close enough to actually have a clear shot at one of the Stormers.” He hands me back my wind spike. “Could you kill them?”
“Is it necessary?” I ask.
“It’s always necessary. They’re the enemy.”
“Right, but are they actually, like, threatening me?”
“Fine, let’s make this easier and say they have their weapon pointed at your true love—and they’ve been murdering kittens all day. Now could you destroy them?”
“Of course.”
The squeak in my voice says otherwise.
“Stop thinking like a Westerly! You need to channel some of that inherited darkness.” He grabs my wrist and drags me closer to Arella. “There she is—the woman who murdered your parents and betrayed your beloved. Stab her.”
“What?” Solana and I ask as he pins Arella with sickly winds and silences her screams.
“I don’t mean anywhere fatal,” he says. “I need her around for my pain doses, after all. But why not take a bit of revenge? Slice off a finger or something. She doesn’t need all ten.”
Arella twists in her bonds, but Aston has her held fast. “I’d stay still if I were you. He might chop off something important.”
“Vane?” Solana asks from somewhere behind me. “You’re not going to do it, right?”
“Quiet, Princess,” Aston tells her. “We’ll get to your problems next.”
“I don’t have any problems.”
“Oh, trust me, you do. But first we need Loverboy to prove he can actually hurt his enemies.”
“I’ve already proven that,” I argue. “I killed two Stormers.”
The guilt and grief of it almost shattered me—and probably would have if Audra hadn’t bonded with me afterward—but Aston doesn’t need to know that.
“That could’ve been a fluke,” Aston says, leaning close to whisper in my ear. “This isn’t hard, Vane. Think about your parents’ faces—their screams. The splash of their blood as she murdered them. Or if that doesn’t get your anger flag flying, think about your girl locked away in Raiden’s dungeon. Shall I describe what it’s like down there? The kinds of things Raiden likes to do?”
He drops his cloak, revealing the full horror of his wounds.
“And let’s not forget that I’m not a gorgeous young girl with deliciously pouty lips. How long do you think it’ll be before he—”
“STOP IT!” I scream, covering my ears.
Don’t picture it.
Do. Not. Picture. It.
“Leave him alone,” Solana says, trying to take my hand.
Aston blocks her. “Not until he proves that his life is worth all the guardians who’ve died to save him. Come on, Vane—what’s the big deal? A few minutes ago you were reveling in her pain. All I’m asking you to do is take the next step.”
My grip tightens on the wind spike, and I raise it over Arella’s hand.
She won’t die if I stab her pinky . . . and she’s done a million worse things.
“And still, you hesitate,” Aston says. “Behold, the worthlessness of the Westerlies.”
I reel around, pointing the spike at his head.
“Go on, then,” he says. “I’ll even make it easy for you.” He holds his palm in front of the wind spike, wiggling his pinky. “Slice away.”
I’m tempted.
I really am.
But I can’t do it.
Aston shakes his head, disgusted. “Here you are, racing across the country, pretending you’re willing to do whatever it takes. But your instincts will always slow your hand, won’t they? And when they do, your little girlfriend will die.”
“Shut up!”
“You can’t stop me,” Aston says. “And you can’t stop Raiden. He’ll break your girl down piece by piece. And when she finally takes her last ragged breath, she’ll do it knowing the boy she sacrificed everything for—the Westerly she spent her life protecting—couldn’t find the will to save her.”
“THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN!”
“Prove it, then. Hurt me. Or hurt her.” He points to Arella. “Show me you can inflict some pain.”
“You want pain?” I ask, squeezing my wind spike so hard the winds feel ready to unravel.
“I want you to prove you have the stones to do what needs to be done.”
“Fine.”
I take a deep breath.
Then I kick him in the nuts.