Roar (Stormheart #1)(100)
Mesmerized.
She swore again, louder and with trembling panic. He had one of the strongest minds she had ever known. She did not think he had ever been mesmerized by a storm, at least not that he had told her, and he loved to tell all his most frightening stories to convince her of the danger. This was her fault. She had distracted him and weakened his control. Skyfire hit the earth again. She couldn’t see it, but she could feel it, like the knowledge that a blade swung and came far too close.
She didn’t know what to do; she wanted desperately to go to him, but that might make them more likely to get struck. Before she could make a decision, skyfire streaked down again, and it landed only steps away from Locke. It didn’t hit him, but his body jerked, spasming for a moment as his elbows gave and his body collapsed back on the sand. She knew the shock from skyfire could travel through the ground and affect people who were not directly hit. And sure enough, when she scrambled to his side, she found him unconscious.
“No.” The word choked in her throat, broken and gasping.
Another flash, lighting up Locke’s lifeless face in the night. She spread her hands over his chest, sliding up to cup his neck and check for a pulse. She thought she felt it, but it seemed weaker than it should be. Every other time she had touched his chest or neck, she could feel his heartbeat strong and wild and forceful, just like the man himself.
Another crack, and she screamed, senseless words scraping her throat raw, “Stop! Please, stop!”
Her eyes were flooded with tears, cascading over her cheeks, dripping down onto her shaking hands. And when the next bolt flashed, it did not touch the ground. It flitted from cloud to cloud several times in quick succession. Her confusion was too strong, too consuming to be only her own. Panting and at a loss for what to do next, she focused on the foreign feelings flooding her mind.
It was a mess of jumbled emotions—mirth and impatience and a playful restlessness that she now realized had been influencing her for far longer than just the length of the storm. Again the skyfire storm flashed overhead, deafening and terrible, but calmer. And inside she felt a corresponding rush of feelings. It was too fast to make sense of them separately, but together, they reminded her of a child who had been told no, gearing up to throw a tantrum, a building whine of disappointment.
That restless feeling built and built until the air grew thick with electricity, and she felt the intention of the storm a moment before a bolt of skyfire raged toward the ground. It was too bright to tell where it would land, but she threw up her arms and yelled “NO!”
She waited for the crack, for the pulse of power that radiated out every time the lightning met the land, but it never came. And when she uncovered her eyes, the storm rolled and flickered above her, but did nothing more. It … waited.
She stared, incredulous and shaking as the storm’s emotions washed over her. Feeling crazy (and desperate and afraid and every emotion there was tangled and mixed together in an overwhelming chorus), she began to think that the storm listened to her.
This … connection … she felt, did it work both ways? Could it understand her?
Two bolts of skyfire speared the sand simultaneously, but far enough away that she didn’t feel any overflow of energy. And somehow, she knew that answer was an unequivocal yes.
“Scorch me,” she breathed, and then immediately threw up her hands in a panic. “No, don’t! Don’t scorch me! I didn’t mean it!”
Thin, quick streaks danced overhead, and she somehow felt laughter, rather than heard it. It bubbled up in her chest, and she experienced the urge as if it were her own.
Breathing heavily, she stared up at the sky in wonder. And feeling like she had lost her wits, she whispered, “You don’t want to hurt me?”
The sky blazed with light—bright and beautiful and as nonthreatening as a skyfire storm could possibly be.
She thought back to the way she’d felt all night. That urge to run and jump and be free and fun. She had already gone this far, so she did not see the harm in suspending her sanity a little longer to ask, “You want to play, don’t you?”
More cloud-to-cloud flashes. Joy and excitement and endless energy.
Her fear was so strong that she had somehow carved out a space in her mind that was only hers, but she could feel the storm’s consciousness surrounding it, and there was no doubt in her mind that the skyfire above was conscious. The constantly shifting emotions gave her a sense of its impulses, and though she couldn’t hear thoughts or anything like that, she could almost feel them. She was stunned to realize that the skyfire heart had the feeling of a child.
“Can you … go somewhere else?”
A sizzling bolt came down twenty paces away. He—she could not say how exactly, but she knew the storm was male—had stayed far enough back not to harm her, but the displeasure at her question was clear.
“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, it’s only—my friend is hurt. We can’t … play with you without being injured.”
More zigzagging bands striped overhead, and Roar fell back to the ground, stunned by corresponding messages so strong that they felt almost like visions. She saw the land—flat and wide, as if from overhead. Followed by repeated images of her, a knife to her finger as she stood over the altar each morning for her offering. Then a final image of her sitting where she was now, her hands dripping blood from her reopened wounds.