Let The Wind Rise (Sky Fall, #3)(21)

Still, the point gives Raiden pause.

“Tell Nalani she has a new charge,” he tells the Stormer. “And to bring an extra uniform to the dungeon.”

The Stormer stands and offers a salute, raising his arm straight in front of him and sweeping it toward his forehead in a wavy motion.

“I keep hoping you’ll prove to be worth all of this hassle,” Raiden says when we’re alone. “And yet I fear I’m setting myself up for another disappointment. Still . . .”

He reaches for my cheek, his fingers grazing the breeze of the Westerly instead of my skin.

I jerk back.

Raiden laughs. “You have many reasons to fear me, Audra—but that is not one of them.”

“Hard words to believe coming from the mouth of my torturer.”

“Ah, but you haven’t been tortured yet, have you?”

“Only because the wind protected me.”

“Is that what you think?” He laughs and reaches for my torn sleeve. “The wind can only do so much. Surely you realize that.”

Shame and rage burn my cheeks, and I refuse to meet his eyes, searching the courtyard for the source of the music I hear.

Small silver wind chimes dangle from the top of the birdcage, swaying in the gentle breeze.

“I see no reason to destroy you, Audra,” Raiden whispers. “Why else would I try your mother’s mind trick to interrogate you?”

“Do you think I only count what happens to me? Gus is—”

“Your friend is a separate matter,” Raiden interrupts. “He challenged my authority.”

I feel my lips smile as I remember that day in Death Valley. The look in Raiden’s eyes—the shock and fury after Gus’s wind spike hit its mark.

A teenager made him bleed in front of his army.

Proved he isn’t the invincible force he claims to be.

And I realize.

Gus will never get out of here alive.

“My patience is wearing thin,” Raiden tells me. “That’s why I’ve had you brought here. One final attempt to make you see reason.”

He steps closer to the cage, slipping his hand through the bars. The closest raven nips gently at his fingers.

“Your mother trained these birds. They were our messengers.”

I meet the ravens’ beady eyes, surprised to find my mother’s connection in their gaze.

No one is ever the same once they trust my mother.

“I . . . don’t understand.”

The whole reason she came up with her bird-messenger system was so Raiden couldn’t read the coded messages she sent to the Gales—unless that was another of her brilliant lies. . . .

A tempest swirls to life inside me as questions and theories crash together. I don’t want to hear the answer, but I have to ask, “How long has she been helping you?”

“Helping me,” Raiden repeats, his laugh as frosty as the wind. “Surely you know better than anyone that your mother is always the eye of her own storm.”

It’s a fitting description.

But it only adds to my confusion. “Why are you showing me this?”

“In the hopes that past mistakes might not be repeated. Your mother and I used these birds long ago—before you. Before your father. Years and years before our more recent interactions.”

“You mean the times you tried to kill her?”

Not that I care.

My mother was trading lives—she should’ve expected to pay the same price.

But it dawns on me then that my mother might already be dead.

The last time I saw her, Raiden had sped up the winds of her Maelstrom, leaving her trapped in their draining pull.

No one was around to help—the Gales were all busy with the battle.

I’m . . . not sure what to do with that thought.

“I’ve spared you this far,” Raiden says, snapping me back to attention, “because you’re intriguing. An Easterly who speaks Westerly—”

“I don’t speak Westerly,” I interrupt.

“So you keep saying. But we both know there’s more you’re not telling me. End this ridiculous charade, or I will be forced to change my tactics—and trust me when I say you can’t imagine the pain I will rain down upon you.”

I believe him.

“Why do you want it so badly?” I ask. “Everyone claims the power of pain is greater than the power of four.”

“What about the power of four pains?” Raiden counters. “Oh, don’t look so disgusted. I seek power to rule our people. Our race has always been weak—no less pathetic than these caged birds. I’m trying to set them free. Trying to make them strong.”

“No, you’re trying make yourself strong.”

“It’s the same thing. No group can ever be strong without a strong leader. Look at the groundlings. Those powerless, talentless wastes have taken over this earth through the strength of a few great men. And yet you fault me for trying to do the same?”

“You and I have very different definitions of the word ‘great.’?”

“Indeed we do. You bonded yourself with that pitiful boy—do you honestly believe he’ll become the leader the Gales desire?”

“No,” I admit after several seconds of silence.