Roar (Stormheart #1)(24)
“I’m … Roar.”
“I like it. Strong. Bold.” She winked and continued: “Next time try saying it without looking like you want to disappear into the nearest wall.”
That was exactly what Rora wished she could do. It was crazy that she was even still here. She needed to look for Cassius. If she didn’t learn what he was doing, this whole risky situation would be for naught.
“I should go.”
“Nonsense,” Jinx said. “If this is your first time at the Eye, you’ve got to get the full experience. If you can handle the chaos, it’s really quite beautiful.”
The Eye. At least now Rora had something to go on. And beautiful didn’t even begin to describe this place. She couldn’t forget that first sight. Lightning frozen in a lantern. Blizzards in bottles. Storms that had terrified and fascinated her for her entire life shrunk down and small enough to hold in her hand. That alone would have been stunning, but the hidden location and the bustle of shoppers and haggling stall owners made her feel like she had entered a new world. And it was right here in her city. For years, she’d been a failure with her hand on the knob of a door that would forever be locked. She forced herself to accept it because she had no choice. There were two kinds of people in this world—Stormlings and everyone else. But this place … it changed everything. Those were regular people out there, the ungifted, buying up magic like loaves of bread.
“And you all … you work here?”
Jinx scoffed. “We’re what keeps places like this running.”
Rora looked over to Locke, not following. He answered, “We’re hunters.”
“Hunters?”
Jinx cut in, “Who do you think conquers those storms so the wealthy and the wicked can have their dose of power? Scorch me, Locke. You’ve gotten really bad at flirting if you hadn’t even played the storm-hunter card yet. It’s pure gold.”
“Jinx,” he warned again.
“Wait … all that”—it was hard for Rora to even spit out the word—“that magic out there … you did that?”
“Not all of it. But all the best stuff out there came from us.”
“So you’re both Stormlings? But you’re not in the military?” All Stormlings not of noble blood were conscripted into the military. No exceptions. She turned to Locke. “Or did you forget to mention that you’re nobility?” Maybe he was related to Cassius after all.
“Where did you find this girl?” Jinx asked. “Under a rock? If we relied on the precious Stormlings for magic, none of this would exist. We’d all be trapped in our grimy cities, bursting at the seams with overcrowding and poverty, too afraid to leave and face the storms outside.”
Suddenly, Rora’s stomach dropped and her head spun. Sweat slicked over her skin. If she didn’t get some air, she was going to be sick. She listed to the side and stumbled slightly.
“Roar?” Hands gripped her arms, and her feet took that as permission to be even less cooperative.
“You can do storm magic?” The words came out in a slurred mess, barely more than a whisper. Dizziness swarmed her, and black spots filled her vision.
“Roar, can you hear me? Tell me what’s wrong.”
Her mouth watered, and her throat felt thick as she tried to swallow. “You—you can do storm magic, and you weren’t born with it?”
Locke’s face filled her vision. “Did you eat anything? Touch anything strange in the market?” Rora couldn’t remember if she ate at all today beyond the tea she was given for the pain.
“Can you—”
“Yes,” he snapped, giving a slight shake of her shoulders. “I can, and I wasn’t. Now quit dodging every question and tell me what’s wrong!”
Maybe everything. Or nothing. Maybe none of this was real, and she was back in her bed having an herb-induced dream. Or maybe everything she’d been taught, everything she thought she knew, was absolutely wrong.
“Locke, your hand,” Jinx said.
Rora struggled to focus her eyes as the world began to spin. Locke’s hand was large and rough, and something red was smeared across his palm. Now that she thought about it, a sharp ache had swallowed her injured arm.
Rora closed her eyes to fight off the dizziness, and when she tried to open them again, the dark whispered for her to stay. So she did.
The first tribes of Caelira lived where the desert met the sea in a land called Vyhodi. Blessed by the goddess with the ability to borrow magic from the natural world, they were her favored children. Over time, they desired more and more magic, nearly stripping the land entirely. Greed was their first sin. Pride would be their second.
—The Origin Myths of Caelira
6
Locke caught Roar as she began to slump toward the floor. She was lighter than he had expected, her frame small beneath the billowing mass of the cloak she wore. Everything went silent as he looked at her slack face. He touched her cheek in an attempt to wake her, and blood smeared from his hand to her skin. For a few moments, he’d forgotten the blood.
“Find Duke,” he barked at Jinx, before carrying Roar to the rug. He shoved up her oversize sleeves and found a bandage on her upper arm that had been soaked through. Skies, had she been bleeding this whole time? He thought back to when he’d grabbed her arm before Jinx’s arrival. She had flinched, but he assumed that was because of his overreaction to her attempts to leave. Had he reopened her wound? The man she was afraid of in the market … had he done this? Fury flashed hot and then cold in his gut.