I’ve said them in my head hundreds of times, and at some point I must’ve believed them.
But can the wind ever really be enough?
Can the wind fill the space between the things I’ve lost?
“You miss someone,” Raiden says.
It’s not a question, but I still answer.
“Yes.”
The confession is sharp as knives, and I realize that I’ve crossed my cell again. This time I must’ve crawled, because I’m on my knees, clinging to the bars like a child.
Raiden covers my hands with his. His skin is warmer than I expected. His grip comforting.
Protective.
“Who do you miss?” he asks, his voice as soft as his skin. “Who have you lost?”
“My father.”
Tears drip off my cheeks, and my hold tightens on the bars.
I don’t want to cry for my father—not here. Not with the man responsible for his death.
But is Raiden responsible?
I thought it was him—but with my head floating and the world spinning, I realize these warm hands wrapped around mine couldn’t belong to a killer.
A killer couldn’t be so soft.
“You’ve had to grow up too fast, and you’ve had to do it alone,” he whispers. “But it doesn’t have to be that way anymore, Audra. I can keep you safe.”
“Safe?” Repeating the word doesn’t help me understand it. “But . . . I’m in a cage.”
“To shield you from the others. The ones who took away your father.”
My mother’s face fills my mind. “You can protect me from her?”
“That’s why I brought you here. Now she can never hurt you again.”
I close my eyes and lean against the bars, grateful to feel them.
“You’ll keep her away?” I whisper.
“As long as you stay here. But I might have to send you off alone.”
I try to open my eyes but my eyelids feel too heavy. “Why?”
“Because you’re hiding something from me. The secret I need in order to protect you.”
“I don’t have any secrets.”
“That’s not true, now is it?”
“It is.”
At least, I think it is.
It used to be true. But everything feels so faded and blurry I can’t be sure anymore.
He sighs, slow and sweet. “Don’t you trust me, Princess?”
“Of course I . . . what did you call me?”
He leans closer, stroking my cheek. “Tell me what you’re hiding, Princess.”
I jerk away and crawl backward across the floor.
My father had a dozen nicknames for me. But he never called me Princess.
Raiden is not my father.
The statement feels so glaringly obvious—but it’s earth shattering too.
Raiden. Is. Not. My. Father.
Did I really think that he was?
How could I . . .
The wind.
This ruined, Southerly wind.
It’s clouding my mind somehow and shifting my emotions.
I pull myself to my feet and press my cheek against the wall, letting the shiver clear my head. “Does that usually work?”
Raiden sends the wicked Southerly away, stealing the last of the warmth—but I’m grateful for the cold.
Each shiver makes me me again.
Even the pain that floods back to the wound on my side is a welcome reality check.
“Actually you’re the first person I’ve tried it on,” Raiden says. “Your mother taught me the trick while we waited for you and your friend to arrive at the Maelstrom. She claimed it would be the only way to get answers from you.”
“Leave it to my mother to help you capture me and torture me.”
Raiden laughs—as bitter and cold as the air. “Actually her method was far gentler than what you’ll face now.”
I can’t stop myself from shaking. But I force myself to meet his eyes, noting that they’re rimmed with dark smudges. Further shadows line his brow and deepen the creases around his frown.
He looks tired.
The realization boosts my confidence as I tell him, “I’ll never give you what you want.”
“They all say that in the beginning.”
He snarls a word, and a ruined Northerly coils into a whip and cracks my face so hard it knocks me to my knees.
Pain stings my cheek. But when I reach up to check for blood, my hand comes away clean.
Raiden seems as surprised as I am and lashes me again, this time across my chest.
The force of the blow makes me wheeze, but a second later the pain fades and no marks line my skin.
My loyal Westerly shield must be strong enough to protect me.
“I knew you had more to hide!” Raiden shouts, his voice a strange mix of fury and triumph.
“No—everything’s gone.”
Everything Vane shared with me.
Everything that mattered.
I stripped it and shredded it and scattered it on the wind—whatever I had to do to make sure it was safe.
“Then why did your friend’s shield abandon him at the first blow?” Raiden asks. “The draft you wrapped around him before we took you both away rushed back to the sky at the first crack of my whip.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am I?”
He holds his sleeve up to the moonlight so I can see the splashes of red staining the fabric.