Echo North(78)

And the other me lifts her head, the Wolf Queen’s laughter ringing in her ears. She looks grim. Determined. Whatever Hal had done, it was at the Queen’s command—he doesn’t deserve to end decaying on her throne—and neither does she. She refuses. She screams into the sky, over and over and over, and I know the words like the own beats of my heart: “I call upon the Winds! South and East and West! Come to my aid!”

They come in a wheeling fire, spinning and raging. Heat sparks on my skin, smoke stings my eyes. They resolve into three forms that look something like men, though they are taller and stronger and brighter than men should be: East blazing like the sun, West with his gold wings furled wide, South with his spear made of mountains, all with jewels flashing white from their foreheads.

The other me can feel the Wolf Queen’s bonds tightening around her, but she’s not giving in, not yet.

“Please,” she begs the Winds, “Take up the threads of the North Wind’s power. Harness time and turn it back. Let me try again to save Hal. Let me have another chance.”

“Daughter, you do not know what it is you ask,” says the East Wind. “It is no little thing.”

“Please. I will do anything. Give up anything. Just let me try again to save him.”

“Would you give up your memory?” says the South Wind.

“Yes.”

“Would you give up your life? Yourself?” says the West Wind.

“I would give anything.”

The words echo in my mind, glinting like embers on my tongue. I know the taste of them, know the feel of them leaving my lips. Because I said them, in another time and another life, in this very spot. In this very moment. I begged the Winds to turn back time, and they did. The other me, the beautiful me—she is me, or was. The first me. Before the Winds sent me back to try again.

“You won’t remember,” warns the East Wind. “You won’t be able to warn yourself. You could go through all of this and still die. Still lose him. Nothing might change.”

The other me—the first me—lifts her chin, unafraid. “It doesn’t matter. I have to try.”

The Winds look solemn. “So be it.”

“No, Echo!” cries Hal. “You don’t know what might happen, you don’t know—”

The first me grabs Hal’s hand and shuts her eyes. “Find me,” she whispers, “And this time I swear I’ll save you.”

“Echo—”

But the world breaks apart and his voice is swallowed in the spinning fragments of lost memory.





CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

I AM EVERYWHERE AND NOWHERE AT once. I am pain and heat and light. I am sorrow. I am joy.

It hurts. It hurts so much.

The Winds are here, wherever I am: East with a shining sword, South with his spear, West with a spinning wheel. There is a fourth power here, too, an unharnessed, teeming energy. I can’t see it, but I can feel it.

I know it is the North Wind, or what’s left of his magic: a current of time and death and loneliness; a torrent of story, as strong as the world itself.

The three Winds gather it up, East and South coiling it around their sword and spear, West channeling it into the spinning wheel. He winds it up, winds and winds and winds, and the sadness and pain pull out of me. I can breathe again. I couldn’t before.

I am in a cold square room. Pricks of light hurt my eyes, and in the center sits a man at a desk, writing in a book. Life pours out of his pen, magic and laughter.

I pace toward him and he lifts his head.

I know him: his fierce dark eyes, his kind brown face. It is Ivan, the storyteller—the North Wind who once was. He smiles at me, lifts his pen from the book. Silver ink drips on the page. “What would you wish of me, Echo Alkaev?”

The light sharpens; it’s coming from the doorway on the other end of the room: there East and South stand watch, fierce and strong, spear and sword raised high.

I touch the left side of my face; it is smooth and soft and for some reason that troubles me. I dreamed once it was rough with scars.

“Send me back. Send me back so I can try again. Send me back so I can save him.”

“Dearest girl.” The North Wind smiles. He beckons me close and draws a mark on my cheek with his silver pen. It feels soft, like a gentle kiss. “You already have.”

And I straighten to see the West Wind beside me, his golden wings spread wide. “Come, Echo. We have very far to fly.” He helps me onto his back and I wrap my arms around his neck, my feet holding tight beneath his wings.

He carries me to the door, and his brothers East and South pull it open wide.

Beyond is …

I do not know.

Starlight.

Emptiness.

I am flying in the dark on the West Wind’s back, riding through the tides of time itself. On and on and on we fly, and I feel myself unwinding, the threads of my life falling to pieces, caught up on the spinning wheel.

I forget who I am and why I’m here and where we are going. I only know I am safe, with the West Wind’s wings beneath me, that all will be well.

I am lost in a sea of stars.

I am wandering, wandering.

But still I can feel the pulse of my heart, and it says don’t let go.

We fly toward a very great light, and my eyes tear at the brightness.