Let The Wind Rise (Sky Fall, #3)(18)

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.

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?”