“Sly belongs to the Church of the Sacred Souls?” Rora had read about the cult that worshiped storms, but she never considered it more than superstition and foolishness.
Locke laughed. “Don’t let her hear you say that. The Church of the Sacred Souls is a new group that borrowed some old ideals. Sly was raised by a much older tradition. In Vyhodi.”
Rora’s jaw dropped. Those that remained of the first tribes after the Time of Tempests were said to be extremely devoted to the old ways, the old gods. They did not even associate with the rest of Caelira. They had no royalty or palaces but lived simple lives in the near wilderness. How had Sly come to join a crew that hunted storms if she was from a tribe that revered them?
“And what do you believe?” she asked Locke.
He adjusted his grip on the reins and tossed his head to move some unruly hair out of his face. “I think this world is an incredibly complex place and we’ve barely scratched the surface of knowing it. But I’d rather stay dead and buried than come back as a storm.”
“Then I guess we don’t disagree on everything.”
He looked at her, but did not smile like he did for Jinx. “I suppose not.”
“When do you think we’ll meet our first storm?” Rora asked. Her heart thumped as something occurred to her. “Will we wait for the storm approaching Pavan?”
“You are not ready to be anywhere near a storm, princess.” She opened her mouth to argue, but he added, “And we only hunt in the wilds. Unclaimed territories are fair game, but near cities, the risk of getting tangled up with Stormling militaries is high. They’d sooner throw people like us to the storms than save us.”
She wanted to object to his insult to the military, many members of whom had offered up their time and patience over the years to help her. She hated to think ill of them, but if Locke was wary and Nova too, she would have to learn from the experiences of others instead of just her own.
Locke picked up speed, pulling away from her and focusing his gaze ahead of them. Rora knew that was her dismissal, and she saved the rest of her questions for later.
They were moving past the wheat fields now. She loosened her grip on the reins, and twisted her torso for one last long look at home. The palace glittered in the early-morning light, the black rolling clouds of an incoming storm unfurled behind it. Pavan was not a particularly religious land. They held no monuments to the old gods, only to Stormlings. Her homeland had stopped looking up for answers centuries ago. Only one thing came from the heavens here, and it wasn’t hope.
But even so, Rora said a prayer to whoever would listen. Whether it was the old gods or nature or simply the open air that surrounded her. She prayed for safety on this journey, and that Nova would not suffer any consequences from their actions today. She prayed that her mother would understand and forgive her. And selfishly, she prayed that when she returned, Cassius would be long gone, and she would never have to face him again.
With that done, she took a deep breath and said her final good-bye.
To Pavan. And to Aurora.
From this point on, she could only be Roar.
Encompassing over sixty percent of Caelira’s land mass, the wildlands are the unprotected territories that remain unclaimed by any Stormling kingdom. Like the boundaries of Stormling strongholds, the geography of the wildlands has changed over time as kingdoms have risen to power and fallen from grace.
—The Perilous Lands of Caelira
10
They rode for hours in near silence, with only the whirring sound of the Rock’s mechanisms to war with the thoughts in Locke’s head. He tried to stay busy, riding back and forth through the group on occasion to check with Sly at the front, then Ransom at the back. But he always found himself settling in the middle of the group, near Roar.
She rode well, he begrudgingly admitted. In the beginning, he had watched her for any sign that she might change her mind. There had been a moment when Roar turned back to gaze at the shrinking city that had made him hope she would reconsider. But after a long, lingering look, she’d faced forward, leaned into the wind, and picked up her pace. And from that point on, the only times she had looked back had been with caution, as though she expected a storm to come barreling after them at any moment.
He almost wished it would. He could use the distraction.
Little by little, her nervous glances backward lessened, so that by the time they stopped to eat and rest at a spot known as Death’s Spine, she appeared completely at ease. Almost … giddy.
It only soured his mood more.
Jinx used her gift to light a small fire, and Ran began reheating a soup he’d made the night before. Soon they would begin hunting for the majority of their food, supplementing whatever meat they killed with supplies they brought along or things Jinx could grow. The witch had already wandered off, looking for a good patch of soil to grow some berries for dessert. He focused on Jinx, staring hard while she dug her hands into the soil, pushing a single seed as deep as she could. She kept her hands buried in the dirt, closed her eyes, and began to use her magic. It should have been enough to hold his attention—his friend coaxing a fully grown plant into existence from almost nothing.
But his eyes kept wandering to where Roar walked along the rocky line of sandstone that gave this area its name. Death’s Spine was the unofficial end of Pavan territory, and from this point on it was them versus the wildlands. There was something captivating about Roar, standing upon that dividing line—framed by civilization on one side and wild terrain on the other. She stared out at the surrounding land, hair blowing in the breeze, taking it all in like she was tasting joy for the first time. He blamed Jinx’s earth magic; when she worked it always seemed to affect more than just whatever plant she was focused on. The sun shone a little brighter, the grass appeared greener, even the breeze seemed to luxuriate in the presence of magic, curling indulgently around them. That had to be why the sight of Roar drew his eye.
“Think she can cut it?” Ransom asked between stirs of the soup.
“I’ll make sure of it.”
His friend knew him too well. “You sound less than pleased about that.”
“Yes, well, I was not given much of a choice.”
“Don’t act like you’re not happy she’s here. We’ve all seen the way you look at her.”