Let the Sky Fall (Sky Fall #1)(92)

It wasn’t my fault.

The words are so foreign—so impossible—I don’t know how to wrap my mind around them. The more they swirl around my head, the more they boil into rage.

Vane tries to hold me steady, but I pull away.

“Why?” I scream at my mother. “You killed Dad. Killed Vane’s parents. Let me take the blame—ruined my life! How could you do that? Why would you do that?”

“You think I killed your father?” She reaches under her uniform and pulls out my father’s pendant, holding the black cord. “You think I wanted this? I loved him. I chose him—out of all the men who wanted me. I bonded to him.”

She waves her link toward my face, pointing to the worn, tarnished cuff like I don’t know what it means.

The winds swell with her anger and she hugs her arms to her chest. Shaking from the pain.

I’m too disgusted to feel sorry for her. “You let the Stormer find us. Did you send the Southerly, too? Knock Gavin out of the sky, knowing I’d save him?”

The thought makes my eyes burn and my stomach heave. The birds were ours— the one thing we shared. “You know how strong our connection to birds is—you knew I wouldn’t be able to resist. You planned the whole thing, didn’t you, so I would take the blame?”

Some small part of me wants her to deny it—wants to believe she couldn’t possibly be behind all the pain and loss I’ve suffered for the last ten years.

Instead, she looks away. “All I wanted was my life back. Our lives back. Our beautiful house in the hills, wrapped in Easterlies that soothed instead of distressed.” She swipes the skin of her arms like she’s trying to sweep the winds aside. “You have no idea what I endure every second, and you don’t care. No one does. Everyone only cares what my gift can do for them. Only your father understood—and when we bonded he promised he would shelter me, ease the burden as much as he could. And he did. Until his family came along.”

She turns on Vane. “They refused to share their language, even after we gave up everything to help them. And they wouldn’t fight, either. Claimed the training caused them pain.” Her eyes darken as she hugs herself, battling another tremor. “They knew nothing of pain.”

“Pretty sure they felt pain when they were murdered!” Vane shouts, holding up the winds he called, ready to hurtle them at her.

I grab his arm to stop him. He studies me for a second, then lets the winds go free.

I take a breath, trying to figure out what to think, what to feel.

The summer sun presses down on us, but my mother shivers as another draft sinks into her skin.

“I couldn’t live that way anymore,” she whispers. “Out in the hammering winds day and night. I pleaded with your father to give up the assignment. But he was like you. Loyal to the Gales beyond all reason. Put his oath above everything. Above me. So I found another solution.”

My fingers curl into claws and I want to lunge for her. “Your solution got everyone killed!”

“No darling, that was you.”

The words knock me back and I feel Vane steady me.

“I planned everything carefully,” she insists. “I offered Raiden a deal—the Westons in exchange for my family’s freedom. Sent the message hidden in a flurry and waited. I felt the moment he received it, and the winds told me he accepted. So I started sending out our location—then I’d warn everyone right before they caught up and we’d run. I wanted to convince your father that we’d always hear them coming, so he’d let his guard down. And I was careful. I found ways to tip Raiden off that couldn’t be traced back to me. I knew your father wouldn’t understand.”

“Because you’re a traitor!”

It’s like she doesn’t even hear me. Her mind’s somewhere else as she rubs the bird on her cuff, staring into the void between us. “I did everything I could to keep my family safe. I convinced your father to start eating, so he’d be too weak to fight. I used you to give us away because I knew your father would forgive you. And I thought it would make you more obedient if you thought you were to blame.”

“Obedient?” Vane shouts. “You framed your daughter—let her take the blame—”

“She was to blame!” My mother’s hard eyes focus on me. “When the Stormer came, I’d almost convinced your father to flee—almost convinced him to abandon the Westons because we weren’t strong enough to save them. But then you ran back into the storm. That’s when it all fell apart. I felt you get caught. Your father went to rescue you, but the storm snared him, too. So I fought my way to the Stormer to demand he release you both and he told me he had orders to kill me.”

“Serves you right,” Vane spits. “In fact, I think I was there when that happened. I saw you fighting. Right before he beat you and flung you out of the storm like trash.”

“He did not beat me.”

“Really? That’s not what it looked like from where I stood. You did some fancy wrist flick thing a few times and pissed him off—but he still launched you out of his way.”

“Because you distracted me! And I hurt him in ways you can’t even imagine.”

The chill in my mother’s voice turns my blood cold.

She scratches at her skin again, and for the first time I see the pain for what it really is. A poison sinking into her.