Duke and Roar began righting the room in silence. They returned the mattress to the bed, and picked up overturned furniture. Roar knelt by her bags, folding her clothes and putting them back inside. She picked up her copy of The Tale of Lord Finneus Wolfram. The binding was loose and a few pages fluttered to the floor. She wanted to cry, but no tears came. Instead she just felt … tired.
And she could hardly worry about mere possessions when the winds were screaming outside, an ominous rumble shaking the walls. She was on edge, waiting for the storm to draw close enough that she felt its presence, waiting for the invasion of emotions that weren’t hers.
“They’ll be fine,” Duke told her, after she spent too long sitting still, her eyes fixed on the window. “I’m more concerned with how you are.”
“Me? I’m fine. I’m always fine.”
“Roar. I want you to know that you can talk to me.”
“I know I can.”
“The man who sold me Stormhearts in the market in Pavan, the man you know … he’s a Stormling, isn’t he?”
She stilled, then fled to the water basin to clean off the blood smeared over her skin. “I don’t know.”
“I assure you, Roar, that I am the last person who will judge you for wanting to leave behind that kind of life. If you have Stormling ancestry, it could help us understand the way you react to storms.”
“I am no Stormling,” she said truthfully.
“You are no girl from the streets either.”
She whirled back to face him. “What does it matter? All the hunters had lives before joining the crew. It’s in the past.”
“Is it truly in the past for you?”
She thought back to the soldiers. Would there be more? How many were searching for her? Could she possibly hope to go undetected by them all? “For now.”
“Just know you don’t have to keep carrying all those secrets alone, and the past has a way of holding on to us, even when we want to let it go.”
Duke helped bandage her cuts, the two of them silent through the long process. Eventually the winds died down outside, and the nervous tossing of her stomach eased. The others were safe. They had to be.
But how long would that remain true while she stayed with them?
“Perhaps we should turn our route back toward Taraanar,” she said, her voice tentative. “The Locke soldiers … they said they were searching the southern regions for their missing princess. It might be better to avoid them.”
Duke’s green eyes fixed on her, but she did not meet his gaze. She knew how perceptive the man was, and that she had just given him the key to her identity. But she did not know what else to do. She would rather risk herself than the other hunters.
He hummed and scratched at his beard and said, “I’m sure that could be arranged. We’ll have to talk to your Locke.”
“He’s not my Locke.”
She didn’t know what he was. How could she possibly decide what she wanted from him when she did not even know what she wanted from herself? With him, there was no crown making her appear more than she was. There were no rumors of her magical skill to make her seem more desirable. He had seen her covered in blood, dissolved into tears, taken over by rage, and frozen by fear. He had seen each and every weakness she had, and somehow, he managed to make her feel … strong. If the skies made her feel small, then Locke made her feel big enough to face whatever waited for her up there.
But she was still Aurora, no matter how much she was Roar.
If she accomplished her goals, if she returned home with Stormhearts that answered to her touch, would her mother allow her to choose her own future? Could a princess choose a hunter as her prince?
* * *
As soon as Locke had checked on each of his teammates, he was running back for the inn. He knew the town had sustained significant damages, and there had been significant loss of life, though it was difficult to feel any sense of loss for the soldiers after what he had walked in on with Roar.
He was panting by the time he fell through the broken doorway to Roar’s room. The furniture had been righted, and her belongings put away, but pools of blood still stained the floor. The water basin in the corner was a vivid red, and Roar sat silently on her bed, her hand now properly bandaged.
Her whole body was tense, and he wanted to scoop her up into his arms and hide her away from the world. Instead he grabbed a towel and began mopping up the blood. Duke got up to help, and he quietly filled Locke in on her condition. She had several cuts—one across the fatty part of her palm and the others around the first joint in her fingers.
When the room was as clean as it was going to get without scrubbing the floors, Duke left to assess the damage from the storm, and Roar finally looked at Locke. Her jaw was tight, and her nostrils flared with strong, slow breaths. He focused on keeping his expression blank. She said, “Is everyone okay?”
“Yes.”
“Shouldn’t you be with the other hunters? Or talking to the minister or—”
He shook his head and said, “I’m not leaving you.”
“I want to be alone. Please.”
“Then I’ll sit outside your door.”
“My door that’s broken and hanging off its hinges? Yes, that will really give the illusion of solitude.”
She was angry, and he didn’t blame her. He still wasn’t sure how he’d let those men leave the room without sinking his blade into each and every one of them. It had taken a monumental amount of control, and in the end it was only the thought that he did not want to put her in more danger that held him back.
When he did not budge, she insisted, “I’m fine.” He had lost count of the number of times he had heard her utter those words. And he had never believed them less than he did now. Her fists were clenched at her sides, and her voice grated as if her throat had been stripped raw.
“Roar—”
“I mean it,” she snapped. “Please just leave.”
So quickly that he might have imagined it, her eyes dropped to his mouth and then she whirled away, sitting on the bed facing away from him. Even though it went against everything his instincts told him, he left the room and even took a few steps down the hall out of sight before he sank down against the wall. He propped his elbows on his knees and buried his head in his hands. He tried to still his thoughts and drain his anger.
Listen.
That was all he needed to do. Just exist and listen in case she needed him. He was not sure how long passed, but it felt far too long. Finally he heard her call, “Locke?”
He called back, “I’m here.”
She was silent for a long time, then said, “I’m sorry about your sister.”
A breath rattled in his chest and his head thudded back against the wall behind him. “Thanks, princess.”
She made a noise that sounded somewhere between a laugh and a sob. Far too close to the latter for his comfort.
“Sorry. Roar.”
“It’s fine. I don’t think I care anymore.”
He hated not being able to see her face. Especially when her voice sounded so hollow. He heard shuffling in her room, and she sounded closer when she spoke.
“Soldiers did that to her?”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth. He did not talk about this ever. But he’d rather split open his chest than suffer through her silence, so he answered, “On orders. But yes.”
“On orders from whom?”
“The king, I suppose. She was just one of thirty that day.”
He heard her gasp. “Thirty? Was that … common?”
“Common enough. Locke isn’t like Pavan. The weather there is even more brutal because of the sea. And the jungles surrounding the city make it a hard place to leave. The people who live there are desperate, and desperate people don’t always think about consequences. And there were consequences for almost everything in Locke.”
“Your sister … was that a consequence?”
He scrubbed his fingers through his hair and tried to deaden his heart for the rest of the tale. “I told you I was young when my parents died. They died during a hurricane. It was just my sister and me left, and she was five years older than me. We weren’t prepared to fend for ourselves. Begging and the few belongings we had left from our parents kept us alive for a couple of months, but that ran out fast, especially after the crown seized the house and all our belongings. I met a man who gave me a gold coin to be his lookout and alert him if I saw any guards. I don’t know what he did while I kept watch. I did not ask. I wanted the coin too badly. He said I did good and if I wanted to make more I could find him at a tavern not too far from the abandoned building where my sister and I slept. That man was the first person to introduce me to the black market.
“It wasn’t like the one in Pavan. There were too many guards, too much danger to keep the market in one place. So, it rotated around the city. He paid me and a few other boys to keep watch. My sister begged me to stop. She insisted we would find another way, even when the few coins I brought home were barely enough to clothe and feed us. She begged on the streets and did odd jobs for anyone who would have her, but I brought home more from one night than she could bring home from a week of working herself ragged. So I kept going back. One night, she followed me, tried to convince me to come home with her. We fought, and I sent her off. I was distracted, so I didn’t notice the guards until it was too late.
“The military raided the market, and I barely got away, hiding behind a cart until I could squeeze through the crowds and run. They rounded up everyone they could get their hands on. Even innocent bystanders who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I ran all the way back home, but at dawn when my sister still had not come home, I knew something was wrong. I got to the square just in time to see them lining everyone up. I was so small, I had to climb up the gutter of a building to see. She was eleven, and they hung her there with mercenaries and thieves and men that she would have been scared to stand beside, let alone spend her last moments with. I don’t remember much. But at one point, I think she saw me in the crowd. Tears were streaking down her face, but she did not make a noise. She smiled at me. One of those, supposed to be reassuring, everything-will-be-okay kind of smiles. And that’s all I remember. I lied before. I don’t recall the moment it happened. Maybe I looked away or ran. Or maybe I’ve just blocked the memory. But she died that day. Because I dragged her into something dangerous.”
Roar did not answer, and he could not blame her. It was a depressing story, not exactly the kind of thing you say to cheer someone up. When he looked up, she was standing in the doorway.
She asked, “Is that why you never took on any apprentices?” His brows lifted. “Duke told me.”
Of course he did. “That’s part of it, yes. I entered this life because I had no other choice. I hated that city. I hated the streets and the guards, most of whom were exactly like those men we just encountered. I hated the royals and the people who cowered in their homes rather than speaking out. I hated everything. And Duke offered me the chance to get out, so I took it and never looked back. Honestly, I think I was hoping I would die. That it would just end. I had lost my parents and my sister, and for some reason, despite ample opportunity, I could not seem to follow them. Before Duke found me, I was becoming more and more reckless with my behavior in the black market, associating with dangerous men, taking risky jobs that were bound to go wrong; but no matter what kind of peril I threw myself into, I always seemed to crawl out of it still breathing. Still do, I guess. I’ve grown to love this life, but I still would not recommend it to anyone who has another option.”
She moved closer, and then sat beside him with her legs crossed. She ran her hands over the smooth fabric of her pants, from her knees to her ankles and back again. With her head down she asked, “Is that why you fought to keep me from joining?”
He swallowed. And there was more emotion in his voice than he wanted there to be when he said, “I would fight it still if I thought it would work. But I find now that I am loath to part with you. I’m sorry for all the times I pushed you away, for all the times I made you angry. It’s only, after I met you … for the first time in a very long time, I had no desire to throw myself into death’s path because I could, to see if I could survive. Because death meant leaving you, and that was unthinkable. Is unthinkable. Feeling this way, the way I do about you, Roar, it’s scarier than any storm I’ve ever faced.”
She made a soft, hurt sound and burrowed closer to his side. She turned her face against his shoulder, and he felt the dampness on her cheeks. He let his hand fall to her uninjured hand resting on her knee. He would have been content just to touch, but she laced their fingers together, squeezing tightly.
“Why go by Locke if you hated it so much?”
He sighed and huffed out a halfhearted laugh. “You are determined to make me spill all my secrets, aren’t you?”
She pulled away, eyes wide and head shaking, and he immediately wished he had never opened his mouth. She said, “No. Not at all. You don’t have to—”
He pulled her back against him and said, “My secrets are yours. Every one of them.” She swallowed, and the answer didn’t please her as much as he thought it would. He continued: “When Duke took me on, I did not remember my real name. It had been so long since someone used it. Mostly I just got called kid or boy. There was a hunter on the crew then named Bear. He was tall and skinny and bald, not a speck of hair on his face. To this day, I still don’t know how he got the name Bear. Anyway, he got tired of calling me boy and started calling me Locke, since that’s where they picked me up. I was too young and intimidated to ask for a different name, so I let it go. It was maddening at first, but eventually … I did not mind it so much. It was a reminder of where I came from and the mistakes I made. A reminder to do better in the future.”
“Oh. Poor thing.”
He frowned. “You don’t have to feel sorry for me. That’s not why I told you any of this.”
“I don’t feel sorry for you. I feel sorry for that little boy who lost everything, including his name.”
When she leaned her head against his shoulder, her cheek against his biceps, he did not feel like someone who had lost everything.
“Give me something else to call you,” she murmured. “The name Locke doesn’t deserve you.”
“I would accept handsome, strong, superior male specimen—”
She pushed him hard enough to send him sprawling over onto his side. But she was laughing. And she could push him as many times as she wanted if he could hear that.
“I’m serious. You’ve never thought of going by something else? You could choose anything.”
He levered himself back up to sit beside her, then shrugged. “I’ve been Locke for nearly half my life.”
“And you don’t think everyone who knows you would gladly call you something else if it was what you wanted?”
“There’s no point. None of us use our real names.”
“So choose another nickname.”
“I can’t choose my own nickname.”
“Fine, I’ll choose one.”
He smiled. “Really? Let’s hear it then.”
“Not right now. That’s too much pressure. I need time to think and choose the best option.”
“My whole future is in your hands here, my very identity.”
She laughed. “Thank you, that certainly reduces the responsibility,” she said and leaned her head back onto his shoulder.
They were still leaning on each other, hands entwined, when the others came back in. He expected her to pull away, but instead she leaned in a little closer, held his hand a little tighter. Ransom’s expression was grim as he approached, and Locke asked, “How bad?”
“It got the whole north wall and about two dozen homes. And … all the soldiers. Minister Vareeth has people searching the rubble to see if there were any more casualties. He was very grateful for our service. He offered to let us stay as long as we needed.”
“Well, that’s good at least.”
Ransom said, “Did any of you think this storm was more sentient than most? At the end, when we had already broken it up, it lashed out with magic one last time, trying to mesmerize me. It might have had me if I’d been distracted or injured.”
“I felt it too,” Locke said. “Struck hard enough to send me to my knees.” Roar leaned closer to him, her bandaged hand sneaking up to lie on his thigh. “So from now we don’t let our guards down for even a moment while we hunt. I didn’t like the feel of this one. It was nearly more than we could handle.”
“Yes, sir,” Bait said with one of his playful salutes.
Roar rested her chin on Locke’s shoulder, and her breath played across his neck. He did not think she had any clue just how much power she wielded over him.
“We could call you captain,” she suggested.
He turned his head slightly and it brought their foreheads close together, their mouths nearly touching. “Pass,” he said.
“General? Sargeant?”
He was smiling. He couldn’t help himself. He didn’t even care when Jinx let out a suggestive whistle.
“I told the innkeeper we would help set this place to rights. As much as we can anyway,” Duke chimed in.
Sighing, Locke climbed to his feet and held out a hand for Roar. She took it without any argument. “Let’s get to it then.”
* * *
“Are you mad?” Cassius yelled, storming into his father’s rooms. The man was surrounded by a sea of food and women, and he smiled up at his son without a care. “You switched the flags? You understand we will have a mutiny on our hands, don’t you?”
“I have men rounding up dissenters as we speak.”
“What men?”
The king chuckled darkly. “My men. Did you think they would all remain loyal as you sent their brothers off to die in search of your whore? After the first group of malcontents are hung from the palace walls, I doubt we will have many more.”
“It didn’t have to be this way. With a little more time, they would have accepted us willingly. This will only foster rebellion.”
“Now is the time to cement your position, before any of the nobles think to try it themselves. Your brother understands. He has decided to orchestrate the hangings himself. And yet my ruthless eldest son has gone soft,” he spat.
Cassius ground his teeth. He supposed his father was letting go of all pretenses now, even the lie that Casimir was his firstborn. Of course, Mir was diving at the chance to win his father’s approval. Pretending to be the eldest over the last few weeks had gone to his head. He’d gotten a taste of power and, like all his family, he craved more.
“Do you think I did not know your plan, boy? To get rid of me once you married the princess? You forget, I taught you how to lie, taught you to deceive. I know what my son looks like when he’s planning a betrayal. And I’ll not have another kingdom stolen from me.”
A chasm opened up in Cassius’s chest, a horrible thought occurring to him now. “You didn’t … did you have her kidnapped?”
The king barked a laugh, and one of the girls beside him flinched. “I should have. It was a good ploy. But, no … the skies offered me that gift. I’m merely taking advantage.”
“And when the skies turn to fire at the Stormlord’s arrival? When the walls crumble under crushing winds? When twisters bombard us from every direction? What then?”
“All the more reason to do away with the farce now and enjoy ourselves while we can.”
“You are mad. The roads are teeming with remnants, all fleeing destroyed wildlands towns. He’s picking them off one by one as he comes for us, and you are making enemies of the Pavan soldiers when we should be banding together to fight him.”
“That can be your job. Since you seem to care so much. Perhaps now you’ll reconsider all the soldiers you’re sending off to die in search of a princess we no longer need.”
* * *
On the fifth day in Toleme, Locke and Ransom completed the last of the repairs to the Rock. They were sweaty and covered in soot, but it was done. They’d thanked the town’s blacksmith, paid him for his help, and retrieved horses to move the Rock to the inn. Even after the town had seen them combat that twister, they did not want to draw more attention by letting them see what the Rock could do.
Back at the inn, Locke worked with Ransom to return the various supplies to the Rock that they’d taken out before the repairs. Jinx and Roar returned from another training session as they worked, and Locke was glad to see Roar looking eager and excited once more.
Roar had continued to give blood sacrifices each morning and without fail, skyfire streaked across the sky each time. It had never shown any sign of developing into a storm beyond that, and neither he nor Duke had any clue why it kept happening, but he would be relieved when it was no longer an issue.
Roar ran her hand along the newly crafted exterior of the back of the Rock. “It really is such an incredible invention.”
“That’s all Locke,” Ransom said, pointing a thumb over his shoulder at him.
“And Duke,” Locke replied. “I thought we needed something more reliable than horses to ride into a storm, but faster than our own feet. Duke was the one to design most of the mechanics, I just found a way to bring it to life.”
“It’s incredible,” she said. “It could revolutionize travel through the wilds.”
“Except that it runs on illegal magic.”
She frowned. “Yes. Except that.”
He and Ransom loaded the last of the supplies, and Roar lingered while Jinx went inside.
“Did you need something?” Locke asked, and Roar’s eyes tracked his movements as he lifted his shirt to wipe his face.
“I’ve got all this excess energy after training with Jinx, and it’s making me restless. Thought I might go for a run, and I was wondering if you wanted to join me.” Her words were hesitant, broken up with unsure pauses.
He started to ask if he could bathe first, but he supposed that would not make much sense if they were about to run. He was sure he smelled of smoke and sweat, and a small part of him wanted to look his best for their first extended time alone in days.
“Sure. I could do with a run.”
She grinned at him, and it nearly took him to his knees.
“You ready?” she asked, bouncing slightly on her feet.
He laughed. “I don’t think I have ever seen you this eager for a run. I know I haven’t.”
She darted back a few steps, and when he followed at a lazy pace, she scurried a little farther. “Maybe I missed running with you.”
His heart began to ease into a faster rhythm, and even though he was tired and sore from the last few days’ brutal work, he felt a burst of energy.
“You missed getting beaten?” he asked with a smile.
She twined her hands behind her and walked backward, pulling him along like there was a lure stuck in his chest. “I don’t know. I’m feeling good tonight. I think today might finally be the day that I leave you in the dust.”
“Doubtful,” he growled, picking up his pace to match hers.
“Prove it,” she said with a smile, then turned and took off at a hard sprint.