But Raiden’s like the kid in my fourth-grade class who liked to catch Japanese beetles, tie string around their bodies, and hold on to one end.
The dumb bugs would fly around in circles, and sometimes he’d let the string go slack. Let the beetles think they were finally going to fly free—and then SMACK! They were splatters of green goo on his baseball bat.
I’m tired of being a dumb bug—and I really really really don’t want any of us to end up green goo.
Raiden thinks he can beat me without even showing up.
Well . . . screw that.
We’re the good guys, dammit!
We’re supposed to pull it together and have that “group shot” moment. Like in the comic book movies when all the heroes gather up and the score gets louder and the camera does one of those fancy 360-shot things and everyone’s like, “RAWR—GO TEAM AWESOME!” And then they dive back in, kicking butt and taking names until the bad dudes explode or get blasted into another dimension or something.
That.
We need that.
But how do we pull that off in reality? Especially a funky reality where we can control the wind, but the bad guys can too?
Except . . . they don’t have the power of four—and that’s what this whole mess is about, isn’t it?
“Solana, didn’t you say you had a Northerly, an Easterly, and some Southerlies stored away?” I ask.
She nods. “Why? What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking . . . are you a Northerly?” I ask Aston.
“I am, actually,” he says. “But if this is a power-of-four thing, haven’t we established that your tricks falter against the power of pain?”
“Have we really?” I ask. “Or have we established that the two powers are different? Because we pulled off something pretty awesome when we were trying to get away from Brezengarde. I kinda forgot about it, since what happened to Gus totally killed the victory. But before that, we used the power of four—and it worked.”
“It did,” Audra chimes in. “There were four of us then, too. And we each used our native wind and gave the command in our native tongue. Our drafts told us what to say, and somehow we made a foehn, and it melted the snow and took out most of the Stormers, before reinforcements arrived. If we ask the wind for help again, maybe it’ll come up with something even better.”
Aston sighs. “It would be a lot easier to get behind this plan if we hadn’t been so horribly abandoned by that Westerly you called over.”
Yeah, that really does suck.
I don’t get why that wind didn’t want to help.
“But just because one draft lets us down,” I say, “doesn’t mean they all will.”
“I think it’s our best chance,” Solana adds. “At least we’ll be coming at them with something they won’t be prepared for.”
She releases three of her drafts, sending the Easterly to Audra, the Northerly to Aston, and keeping the Southerly for herself.
I untangle my Westerly shield, begging it to swirl with the others and not drift away.
“What about me?” Arella asks.
“We don’t need you.”
I might be imagining the joy in Audra’s voice, but I’m pretty sure she’s wanted to say those words to her mother for ten years.
“So what am I supposed to do?” Aston asks.
“Right now, it’s all about listening.” Audra holds out her hands, and Solana and I each take one.
Aston sighs as he reaches out and completes the circle—and I’ll admit the whole process does feel a little “Kumbayah.” But as I beg the winds for help and focus on their lyrics, I can hear their songs slowly synchronizing.
The whirlwind picks up speed, whipping into a frenzy as a single word rings out over all the others.
“Everyone else is hearing ‘simoom,’ right?” I ask. “That’s an actual thing?”
“It is,” Audra tells me.
“And I doubt they’ll be prepared for that,” Aston murmurs.
“Why, what’s a simoom?” I ask.
Audra tightens her hold on my hand. “It means ‘poison wind.’?”
CHAPTER 44
AUDRA
I’ve never seen a simoom before.
They’re rare in this part of the world.
And Windwalkers tend not to use them.
Partially because they can be erratic and untamable. But mostly because they’re terrifying.
To let the earth choke out all the air . . .
My shudder makes me realize what I’m forgetting.
“I need you to warn the Gales,” I tell my mother, hating that we have to rely on her after all. “Tell them to hold their breath and cover their hands and faces—without tipping off the Stormers.”
I wish I could order a retreat, but that could ruin everything. And I doubt the Gales would be able to get past the Living Storms anyway.
“I’ll use the birds,” my mother tells me, marking the feathers on her crow’s wing. She whispers directions for it to follow and sends it soaring into the stormy sky.
“Okay, what the heck is this thing we’re about to make?” Vane asks as my mother calls more birds to warn the other Gales.