Let the Storm Break (Sky Fall #2)(67)

“I had no choice!”

“Wait, when you say Maelstrom . . .” Gus starts, but his voice trails off when I nod. “Whoa.”

“Yeah.” I pull Audra closer, silently begging everyone to drop this. Now is not the time to give Audra anything else to worry about.

But Audra isn’t letting it go.

“How could you?” she yells at Os. “How could you do that to the wind? To innocent people?”

“Who said anything about innocent?” he snaps. “The only person trapped in my Maelstrom is a violent murderer who used her gift to nearly escape—twice—from our regular prison.”

Audra sucks in a breath, and I tighten my arms around her, wanting to hold her steady as she puts the pieces together.

She pulls away from me, stumbling to my window and staring blankly outside.

I should’ve found a way to tell her before this.

She should’ve heard it from me.

But even now, I have no idea how to say it.

“What prisoner is he talking about?” Solana asks when no one says anything.

I open my mouth, trying to force out the words. But I can see in Audra’s eyes that she already knows.

She reaches out her hand, letting a small mockingbird land on her finger as she whispers, “My mother.”





CHAPTER 32


AUDRA

M

y mother is in a Maelstrom.

I . . . don’t know what to feel.

I stare at the tiny bird roosting on my finger—drawn to me because of the gift my mother and I share—and try not to imagine her gray-blue, withered body dangling from the ceiling on a chain, her limbs twisted and tangled, her face contorted with agony.

I knew her punishment would be severe. But I never imagined . . .

“How long does she have left?” I whisper, wondering if I really want to know the answer.

The tiny bird tenses as Vane comes up behind me and puts a hand on my shoulder. “She was only guessing when I talked to her. But she thought maybe a few weeks.”

Weeks.

My hand shakes so hard the bird flies away, and I grasp the windowsill to steady my balance.

“Did she look . . .” I can’t even ask. I don’t want to picture it.

Vane spins me around and pulls me against him. “She looked weaker,” he whispers. “Kind of pale and greasy. But not like someone who’s . . .”

“Dying,” I finish for him.

My mother is dying.

A slow, painful, horrifying death.

But she’s a murderer, I remind myself.

A cold, cruel monster who killed Vane’s parents and cost my father his life and let me blame myself for all of it.

And if I’d been weaker, she would’ve killed me.

But . . . does that mean she deserves to be eaten alive by the winds?

The winds.

“How could you do that?” I ask, turning to Os. “How could you ruin the wind?”

I can still hear the Easterly’s mindless wailing after Aston shattered it in front of me—still remember the restless spinning of the devouring winds in the Maelstrom.

“I thought my heart might break along with them,” Os whispers. “But my first priority is to protect our people, and your mother was uncontainable without the Maelstrom. I used the absolute bare minimum of winds that I could, stopping the second I had enough.”

“And how many was that?” I ask.

Os’s hand darts to his scar, his fingers tracing the thin red lines. “Twelve.”

Twelve.

Twelve times he called the wind to his side.

Twelve times he let them sweep around him like loyal friends, then watched them writhe and scream before their songs fell silent.

Tears blur my vision and I don’t want to smear them away. I don’t want to look at the man who could do something that horrible twelve times.

But the tears fall on their own when Os tells me, “Believe me, their cries will haunt me until my dying day. And I keep hoping that there’s a way to restore them. Perhaps with the power of four, or . . . just, somehow. I refuse to believe they’ll forever be this way.”

I can hear his grief in every crack in his voice.

He doesn’t seem like the power-crazed monster Aston described, but . . .

Hadn’t he been threatening to break our bond only a few minutes ago?

Aston sent me to Death Valley so I could see Raiden’s Maelstrom—see the depths of his horrors and the level the Gales would have to sink to in order to defeat him.

Is that what’s happening?

My knees can’t seem to hold me any longer, but Vane catches me and carries me to the bed. He lays me down and I want to pull the blankets over my head and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist. I settle for pulling him next to me and leaning against his side, soaking up as much of his heat as I can.

“Are you okay?” he whispers.

I’m not sure how to answer.

I feel like I’ve just found out the sky is green, and can never see blue the same way again.

Os clears his throat. “We’re wasting precious time. None of this is going to help us face down Raiden.”

“You’re right,”Vane agrees after a second. “But we will be talking about all of this with the Gales when we’re done. No more secrets— for any of us.”