Rage--A Stormheart Novel, Page 2

  “What about Avira?”

  “Let’s say she would have a lot to work with here.”

  His eyes left her to scan the camp around her, softening then widening in understanding. “That is why you are so pale? Because you can hear them?”

  She thought about arguing that she was always pale, but decided it was not worth the breath. “Something like that,” she said. “Hear. Feel. Taste. See. It depends on what they are putting off. But yes, they are everywhere.”

  “This is the nearest you have been to a city since your waking. Is it that?”

  She huddled closer to his side, trying to keep their conversation as private as possible. “That might have something to do with it. But it’s also the remnants.” She worded her next sentence carefully, hoping he understood. “They have all experienced so much loss. And much of it has followed them here.”

  Their eyes met, and he looked at her with a knowing grief that made her want to collapse into his arms right there in the middle of everyone. Instead, she let herself lean on him as she took another step forward.

  “We can set up camp farther away,” Kiran suggested. “It will give you some space. And the Rock is too conspicuous anyway.” The hulking metal contraption that passed for a traveling carriage was quite unusual.

  “But we need to get information, make connections, learn about the guard situation—”

  He cut her off. “And we will do that. We can all make trips into the camp for reconnaissance and communication. Yet another reason to set up camp elsewhere—Jinx can grow us food and herbs to trade, and that will be our best way to form relationships in this camp.”

  Some part of her felt like she should argue because that was their way. Even when they agreed on things, they still argued, examining every aspect of a situation until it had been exhausted. But she was the exhausted one now, and his plan truly did seem reasonable. He was not insisting on the location only for her sake.

  She did not want him coddling her. She could not afford that. If the presence of souls was just as numerous inside the city, she would have to learn how to deal with the effects quickly, because she could not wait any longer than absolutely needed to get inside the city and find the answers she required. Something had happened to her mother. There was no other explanation for how the Locke flags could be flying. Queen Aphra was a proud and powerful ruler above all else, and she would not part easily with her crown. Not unless … Aurora had to stop thinking about the possibilities or she was going to be ill, right there next to someone’s home.

  She could not let herself waver now. She imagined it not unlike the preparation one took to battle a storm. The other hunters had taught her tricks and put her through training and endurance exercises, but in the end, they said it always came down to which heart was stronger—yours or the storm’s. She had to face this the same way. She did not know what waited for her back in the city of her birth; she only knew it was not for the faint of heart.

  “Let’s go find a spot to set up our camp then,” Aurora said. The sooner they got settled, the sooner they could get to work, and she could do what had to be done.

  * * *

  Cassius’s mood was as black as the clouds that seemed to ring the city in perpetuity. It did not matter when he dispelled one storm because there were always more waiting just on the horizon. But he had learned from the last time his city had been under siege; he was not so arrogant to make the same mistakes again. This time, he would be ready.

  It was not enough to simply fend off the Stormlord’s attacks. He was too powerful. The Stormlings here were used to a fierce Rage season with near daily storms, but they had never known what it was like to be beset by multiple storms at once, from different directions that did not play by the rules of nature.

  When Locke had fallen, it had been to hurricanes and firestorms and skyfire and snowstorms—bodies had lain frostbitten and burned side by side. He had been trying to prepare the men here for what they would soon face, but none of them truly understood.

  Not yet.

  But he would make them. If he had to burn or freeze or drown them himself to make them understand the danger that was coming, he would.

  When he was halfway down the hall to his room, he began tearing at the buttons to his coat, eager to have the thick garment off his sweaty body. He had come from a training session with the kingdom’s most talented Stormling soldiers—a mix of Pavanian men and women and a few of his own surviving men. Perhaps, if he had not lost so many of his own soldiers in the wildlands as they searched for Princess Aurora, he would feel better about their chances. But as things stood, they had a long way to go before the soldiers he was training could prevent the kind of destruction that had taken his homeland.

  Scowling, he ripped off his coat, and pushed open the door to his office. He threw the heavy piece of clothing on top of a nearby chair, and attacked the buttons of his shirt next, not bothering to undo them neatly, but pulling the shirt open with one harsh yank.

  Then he stilled, noticing too late that his rooms were not empty. He stiffened, ready to reach for one of his knives, before a second person emerged from the bedroom, a silk scarf wound about his fists. Cassius relaxed, but only slightly, then stalked across the room to tear the pretty piece of silk from the hands of his brother.

  “What do you think you are doing?” he snarled.

  His younger brother gave a cavalier smirk, but loosened his hold so the purple fabric came free easily. Casimir said, “Just trying to figure out why you still live in this place, rather than taking rooms of your own like the rest of us have.”

  “I like these rooms.” Cassius said, his tone clipped. He started to fold the scarf, but the scrape of a chair behind him reminded him that there was a third person in the room. Not wanting to give away more than he already had, he wadded the silk up and tossed it aside in the same manner he had his coat.

  “You could at least change things up,” his brother added. “Bleeding skies, the wardrobe is still filled with dresses.”

  He ground his teeth together and swallowed the answer he wanted to give—that Aurora would be back, he would find her, no matter how long it took. Instead, he sneered, “I have been too busy to redecorate. Impending doom, and what not.”

  Casimir crossed in front of him and threw himself lazily onto the settee in the middle of the room, kicking dirty boots up on one end without a care. “You are not the only one working around here, brother. I ferreted out a rebellion rat just this morning. He was caught stealing supplies, and I cut off his hands to set an example. His head too, of course. But the hands first, so he could watch. Made quite a pretty display out by that gaudy palace gate. It really livened up the place, I think.”

  Ignoring his brother’s sadistic boasts, Cassius let his eyes drift to the far side of the room where his father sat coolly at Cassius’s desk, his fingers steepled and the slightest smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

  “And you?” Cassius asked. “What have you been doing?”

  “Overseeing things, as a king does. Casimir has made quite the impression in his assignments so far. How goes your training?”

  Cassius’s stomach turned sour. This was always how things went with his father. He saw everything as an opportunity to manipulate, and he would pit the brothers against each other again and again until one or the other was dead most likely.

  “Badly. They are ill-prepared for the strength the Stormlord will bring.”

  His father sat up straighter. “Then make them prepared.”

  “Don’t you think I am trying?” He scowled. “I don’t want to be here when another kingdom falls. But I cannot do it alone, and there simply is not enough skill among the Stormlings that remain to survive a siege for long.”

  “Then figure out something else,” his father snarled.

  “It’s not too late to leave,” Cassius suggested. “If the Stormlord followed us here as you believe, maybe it would be better if we disappeared for a while.”

 
; The king rose abruptly, knocking the chair back against the bookshelf. “That bastard will not make me leave. I am a Stormling. I am a king. I will not flee because some aberration with a measure of magic thinks he will change the way of things.”

  “Technically, you already did flee once.”

  Cassius should not enjoy the sour grimace that crossed his father’s face, but he did. The man was an arrogant fool, and father or not, Cassius had no plans to die for him.

  “We simply have to do things differently this time,” the king said, wandering from the desk to graze his fingertips over the spines of the books that sat on Aurora’s bookshelves. Cassius fought the urge to snap at his father for touching one of the few things remaining that gave him some sense of connection to his almost-bride. He did not like either his father or his brother being in these rooms. It made his skin itch deep beneath the surface, where he could not reach to scratch.

  Eager for them to leave, he said, “That is my intention, if I can find Stormlings strong enough to back me up. I do not want to simply wait and prepare for the Stormlord’s eventual siege. I want to take the fight to him. He might bring with him a multitude of storms, but he is still only one man. If I can fight him face-to-face, I know I will win.”

  Finished with the conversation, Cassius removed the shirt he had undone upon his entry, and used it to wipe the sweat from his face and chest.

  “Now if the two of you are done invading my privacy,” he said, “I would like to bathe and rest before the next storm comes. Unless, that is, one of you would like to take a shift?”

  Casimir was the first to head for the door. “Sorry. I have things to do. The remnant population outside the city has grown out of control. And I still have some leads on the rebellion to run down.” Casimir looked around the room one more time and added, “You really should consider letting go of this obsession with the Pavan girl, brother. You are better off without her.”

  Then he was gone, the door left ajar with Cassius shirtless and annoyed, facing off against his father. Rather than wait for his father’s next prod, Cassius chose one of his own. “How is Mother?”

  The king shrugged. “Well, I suppose.”

  “You suppose?”

  The two had never been a love match, but they had shared an interest in power, and that had been enough to sustain their marriage all these years. But since their arrival in Pavan, Cassius’s mother had become withdrawn and disinterested in even the manipulative games her husband played with their sons and their new subjects.

  “If you are so concerned, go find out for yourself.” With those words, his father left, closing the door to his rooms behind him as he went.

  Cassius stood there for a long moment, thinking of his mother. He did not love her, not the way he knew children were supposed to love their mothers. But he wondered if she thought too much of home, the way he sometimes did. He had never been an affectionate or loving child. He never would have expected to feel homesick. But he missed the sea, the smell of salt on the air, the way you could hear the waves long before you could see them. His home had been alternatingly cold and brutal and dangerous, but sometimes … sometimes it had been beautiful and warm and soft. And Cassius missed it all—the brutal and the beautiful.

  It was a place where he fit, and he supposed that was what made it home.

  The soul is accustomed to being one half of a whole. Without an earthly body to cling to, it will seek out something else to fill that void. Some find peace in the wind, others lose themselves in the rush of the river, and still others find solace in the darkest of companions—storms.

  —from the personal journal of spirit witch Avira Croixell

  2

  Kiran was used to being the first one up in the morning. It was part of his routine. He liked having that slightly different perspective on the world from everyone else. He learned a lot about people by seeing them first thing. And lately, with Roar sleeping in his tent, he had particularly enjoyed those soft moments of early-morning quiet, when everything was dark and calm, and he could watch the flicker of the skyfire storm upon her chest rage with silent beauty.

  But this morning, she was not in the tent when he woke up. He felt a pang of longing that scared him more than any dark sky ever had. She was coming to mean so much to him, eclipsing anything and everything that had come before her. He had no feeling to compare this to, other than the simultaneous thrill he felt while hunting storms, and the unforgiving pain that sometimes came along with his choice of profession.

  He dressed quickly and climbed out of the tent, finding Roar tending to a small fire near the Rock in the wooded area they had chosen as their camp. They had left a decent distance between themselves and the city, so their fire would not attract wanderers, and they had waded into the forest some to avoid the constant trickle of remnants that were still arriving via the road. Their horses were tied up nearby, grazing lazily in the early-morning light.

  He sat down near Roar and asked, “How long have you been up?”

  She shrugged. “Not long.”

  From the way she had tossed and turned last night, and the smudges beneath her eyes, he feared she had slept hardly at all.

  “Any better today?” he asked. They’d had a long conversation the night before about her experience in the remnant camp.

  She took a drink of water, and then shrugged again. “Maybe. Maybe not. I suppose we will see when I go back to the camp today.”

  His stomach tightened uncomfortably, and it took all his restraint not to demand she go back into the tent and rest more before trying any such thing. He knew Roar, and he knew where that would get him—exactly nowhere. But it was not long ago that she was lying limp and unconscious on a cot, with him unsure whether she would ever wake. His protective instincts told him to take her somewhere remote and far away where it would just be the two of them, and no one could harm her. Perhaps it was more than just his protective instincts that wanted the two of them alone together. But anything would be better than where he had brought her—back to the very place from which she had run, a place that was clearly in the midst of tremendous turmoil that they needed no part in, not to mention that the royal family he despised had seemingly escaped the destruction of Locke to set up here. In fact, if Roar’s information was correct, then the entire Locke family had been in Pavan before she had left for the wildlands with them.

  Kiran did not know whether whatever gossip she had heard could be trusted, but she seemed certain. If she did indeed turn out to be right, that would mean that the cruel, corrupt king who had ordered the hanging of his sister when she was a mere child had again escaped any form of justice to live rich and free as the oppressor once more. It was not as though Kiran were rooting for the Stormlord. Skies, the madman had leveled an entire city, taking who knew how many innocent lives. And if the stories they had heard so far from the remnants were true, he had been destroying smaller villages in the wildlands as well, pushing nearer and nearer to Pavan. But if the universe were fair at all, the Locke family would have gone down with the city they ruled. That was a sentiment he could feel no guilt over.

  “We should split into pairs or small groups,” Kiran told Roar. “At least until we get the lay of the camp, and get to know any risks and vulnerabilities.”

  He was learning to choose his battles with her. For whatever reason, she was determined to return to her home. He could not talk her out of it, so the best he could do was be there with her. Hopefully with the crew’s help, she could do what she needed to do, and get out of here as fast as possible.

  “Sounds fine.” She took another sip of water, her thoughts clearly elsewhere, so he let her be. Instead, he started packing up a few things he thought they might trade today to begin making inroads with the remnant community.

  A while later, the sun was firmly piercing through the trees, and the rest of the crew had crawled from their beds to begin the day. Kiran had packed three separate bags with extra supplies and equipment and the fruits and vege
tables born from Jinx’s earth magic the night before. They could split into pairs, and each take a bag and use it to learn what they could.

  He offered Jinx the first bag, since as the resident earth witch she was responsible for creating a good portion of its contents. He would have offered the next to Ransom, but his burly friend had already stepped up beside Jinx, towering over her short frame. The witch rolled her eyes, but did not complain, so he turned to the rest of the crew.

  “Someone should stay with the Rock,” he said, wishing it could be Roar, but knowing she would never go for it. “Duke, you all right with holding down the camp?” The old man deserved a lie-in after the frantic pace they had set to cross the wildlands.

  But Duke stood, his posture firmer than Kiran had seen it in years. “No, I will be going. I have been coming to this city longer than any of you have been alive. There’s a better chance I might recognize someone who can help us.”

  Kiran blinked, but did not argue. He had in many ways taken over leading the team in recent years because Duke did not go out into the storms as much as he used to, but the man would always be in charge. Whatever he said went.

  “Okay. Then it’ll have to be you, Bait.”

  Immediately, the lanky, ginger-haired teen was on his feet. “Oh come on, I’m not the novie anymore.”

  Ransom snorted from his position behind Jinx. “You’ll always be the novie. Novie.”

  “That is it,” Bait declared. “Next time you fall asleep, that beard is mine.” He mimed snipping motions with his fingers at the hunter, who was wider than two of him put together.

  Kiran sighed, both annoyed and relieved that at least some things could be depended on to stay the same. “Roar might be our newest member, but it makes no sense for Roar to stay since she’s the reason we’re here. Now, you can whine to Sly and see if she will swap with you, but somehow I doubt your tears will move her.”