Rora spent the day pretending, which was not that different from her usual day, except this time there was hope beyond the lies. As she made preparations, she couldn’t quite admit to herself aloud what she was planning.
She was a princess without the power to keep her kingdom, a girl whose future had been decided for her. That was the cold hard truth. But it didn’t have to be. If she had learned anything last night, it was that the world wasn’t as clear-cut as she had always believed. And between the bad choices and the worse choices, perhaps there was another road that she had never known existed until last night.
She expected to change her mind as the day went on, that she might come to her senses. Instead the world seemed to be affirming her reckless decision.
She overheard a conversation between the queen and one of her advisers: “It’s the Rage season, Lord Delrick. If he wants a Stormling guard to take him to Finlagh again, it will cost him. He agrees to my price, or he takes his chances on his own in the wildlands.”
Rora spied a pile of tax documents on the queen’s desk, the top one of which read OVERDUE in big, bold letters. When she flipped through the stack, a few papers had a large red x covering the entirety of the page. Did her mother really banish defenseless people to the mercy of the wildlands if they could not pay?
Rora found a massive pile of petitions for citizenship—those who currently lived outside Pavan but wished to make it their home. There were too many people for too little space and too few jobs. What had her mother said to her only days ago? I wish that we did not have to make such hard choices.
The royal seamstress Mistress Carrovain and her assistants, including Nova, were being worked furiously to finish alterations to her wedding gown. And when the seamstress accidentally pricked Rora with a needle, she noticed the way the older woman’s face went taut with fear and her hands trembled. Even the queen’s longtime seamstress appeared to live as if on a blade’s edge. As if banishment waited for her over a meaningless drop of blood.
Queen Aphra had always been stern—she had to be as a woman in her position—but Rora had never seen her be cruel. But she had been kept in the dark about so much, perhaps Rora did not know her mother as she thought.
Aurora had seen enough. She donned her disguise again. On a whim, she collected her brother’s twister ring from the Stormheart box that remained in her rooms and threaded it on a long necklace that she wore hidden beneath her cloak. And then, using the storm shelter exit, she left.
The dark night pulsed with silence, and Rora heard echoes that were not there as she navigated her way down the streets toward the Eye. She was afraid she had forgotten the way, but a familiar swinging lantern affirmed her path. Her blood rushed fast beneath her skin as she squeezed through the hidden entrance and down the long tunnel that separated the dark street from the market on the other side. This time Rora felt no apprehension. No fear. Only wonder and want.
Quietly she drifted along the path between stalls, taking it all in, enjoying the sound of people haggling over price and stall owners’ sales pitches to wandering buyers. And then she saw whom she was looking for.
“Duke?”
The old man’s hair was long and loose tonight, and some of it fell over his wrinkled forehead when he spun to face her. She had gone over and over her memories of the Eye throughout the day, and finally she’d realized why she found Duke so familiar the night before. When she’d been talking to Locke, she’d seen Cassius at a vendor behind him. Through the commotion that followed and her fainting ordeal, she hadn’t immediately remembered that the vendor Cassius had been speaking to was a thin old man with long, braided hair. Seeing the hunter again now, she was certain it was him.
“Well, I’ll be damned. You came back after all. Locke is around here somewhere.”
Rora stepped up to the table he was tinkering over, refusing to let herself get distracted by all the interesting baubles and artifacts before her.
“Actually, I wanted to speak with you.”
His eyebrows lifted, stark lines of white on a weathered, tanned face. “And what can I do for you, Roar?”
Her heart thrilled at the sound of that nickname. It was blank. Unfinished. Filled with so much possibility. Aurora had kingdom-sized baggage attached, but Roar was whomever she wanted her to be.
“Last night. Before we met, I saw you talking to a young man at your stall. Nearly as tall as Locke. Broad shoulders. He wore a wide-brimmed black hat that shadowed most of his face.”
Duke’s brow furrowed. “I remember him.”
“You do?” Her question came out too loud, too excited.
“It’s not every day that an unknown walks into my stall with Stormhearts to sell.”
“He … what?”
“Three of them. I can count on one hand the number of times someone has had even one to sell. Three? Let’s say I won’t be forgetting that lad for a while.”
Stormhearts were sacred. She had been shocked when Cassius had left the skyfire Stormheart for her as a gift. But to sell three more? Why would he give those up? It didn’t make any sense.
“Did he say why?”
Duke shrugged. “Gold, as far as I could tell. I didn’t have enough on hand to pay the heavy sum that three Stormhearts are worth, but he took my offer anyway. Seemed eager to get the money and get gone. I thought maybe he was trying to con me with fakes, but two out of the three came to life as soon as I touched them.”
Why would Cassius need money? If the rumors were true, the Locke family’s riches were vast. “And the third?”
“Firestorm. Not one of my affinities. But I took the chance since he was selling cheap, and Locke confirmed this morning that the Stormheart was real.”
Rora gasped. “Locke has an affinity for firestorms?”
Duke nodded, scratching at the white and gray stubble along his jaw. “He does. He has the most affinities out of anyone on the crew.”
“So, you use the Stormhearts you buy to help you?”
Duke shook his head. “There’s no shortcut unfortunately. Hunters have to earn their hearts the old way. But Stormhearts are valuable for more than just the magic they can channel for Stormlings.” He moved aside his long coat to reveal a complex leather belt with pockets and loops, all filled to the brim with various bottles and tubes and capsules. Duke flicked open a snap with scarred fingers and withdrew a small cylindrical tube, smaller than her pinky finger, with a fine scarlet powder inside. There was so little that it barely covered the rounded bottom of the tube.
“This is powder from a firestorm heart,” he said. “Ingesting it can make your skin temporarily fire resistant. The embers still hurt like hell when they hit you, but bruises are better than burned flesh. This small amount would sell for ten gold pieces.”
Thinking of Etel trying to sell Rora firestorm powder, she asked, “So it won’t burn you from the inside out if you ingest it?”
He laughed. “Oh, it can. But you’d need an entire Stormheart’s worth to do it. There are cheaper ways to do violence.”
“Do the other hunters have firestorm affinities?”
He shook his head. “Only Locke. Some don’t have any interest in the more dangerous stuff. Sly, for instance, only has a few affinities. Doesn’t want more. Bait’s our novie, sorry, novice. He’s still apprenticing under Jinx, and a little too eager. Eager hunters make for dead hunters. So I’ve got him capped at thunderstorms for now.”
There was no point trying to hide her emotions—they were bursting out of every pore of her skin. “I want to know everything.”
“Remember what I said about eager hunters?” Duke said with an arched brow.
“Eager for information is not the same as reckless behavior.” She should know—she was prone to both.
“True. But in this place, we trade. For everything. Even information.”
Her face fell. She had not thought to bring coin with her. All she had were the clothes on her back, and … the Stormheart ring. But she couldn’t. Not even for the answers she so desperately desired.
“I have nothing of value I can trade.”
“Nothing of value to you, perhaps.” He looked at her for a moment, then said, “The man you asked about. What can you tell me about him?”
She blanched. “Nothing. I know nothing about him.” She frowned. “I don’t have any coin on me, but I could get some and come back. Would you tell me then?”
Already, she was calculating whether she could make it back to the palace and return without getting caught. She turned to go, knowing the sooner she did it, the better. Servants would wake to prepare for tomorrow’s wedding before dawn.
“Wait,” Duke called before she had gone more than a few steps. “What do you want to know?”
She turned. “What about the trade? I did not give you information or goods.”
His intense green eyes fixed on her. “You gave me information, just not with words. A man comes to me with Stormhearts to sell, and Locke tells me you were afraid of someone in the market last night. And here you are today asking about my customer. That tells me enough.” Those intense eyes fixed on her again. “For now. Ask your questions.”
For now? Rora swallowed her discomfort and peppered him with questions, starting with the items for sale in his stall. Some were familiar. Lightning lanterns and the eternal embers she’d been introduced to the night before, but she listened with rapt attention as he explained the rest.
Duke held up a bottle with a twister inside and explained that some people bought the raw storm magic for nefarious purposes. Someone might throw a bottle like the one he held through a window so the short-lived twister created when the bottle smashed would destroy the building from the inside out. But the hunters used raw magic for defensive reasons. Duke said, “Most storms are about momentum. Disrupt one storm by throwing another in a mix, and they’ll both dissipate.”
“What if they don’t? What if they join together and become twice as dangerous as before?”
“It can happen. Has happened. But I’ve been hunting these beasts for decades, so there’s not much I haven’t come across. I know what works and what doesn’t.”
Rora wished she could open up his mind, his memories, and read them like a book. But she couldn’t; all she could do was ask every question that popped into her head. “What about the rest?” Rora asked, waving a hand at all the merchandise. “The stuff that’s not raw magic in a bottle.”
“You met Jinx. She’s the witch of the crew,” Duke answered. “Earth witch by nature. But with the right incantation, she can do just about anything. She’s the one who makes all our imbued pieces. And she enchants our hunting equipment to aid us. You can’t have a hunting crew without a witch.”
Rora’s tutors had always taught that witches had been wiped out with the first tempests. Those who claimed to practice witchcraft now were more masters of deceit than anything. Stormlings held the only true magic.
Or so she had been told.
Duke handed her a necklace, and its white crystal pendant was warm against her skin. “That’s our bestseller. It will burn hot when storm magic is in the immediate vicinity. It gives those who can’t afford more complex magic a shot at finding shelter before it’s too late. It’s popular among those who work the fields outside the safety of the palace walls.”
Rora returned the necklace and glanced at the other jewelry and baubles laid on the same table. “And those?”
“More storm alerts. A few are imbued with elemental energy. They give the wearer a minor ability to manipulate either earth, wind, water, or fire. They’re typically only good for one use, but in a pinch they can be the difference between life and death.”
The more she dug, the more lies she uncovered. Her mother had said there was no other choice. That marriage to Cassius was the only option. That Stormlings were the only option. But here she was, surrounded by more options than she could even fathom. Rora’s eyes grew watery, and she turned away under the guise of studying a few more trinkets. Grief and anger warred in her, the latter gaining control.
“Why must this be done in secret? Surely all this could be used in bigger ways to make the world better, safer. I’ve seen the lightning lanterns and the eternal embers, but what about Stormling inventions like the palace gate that can only be opened with skyfire magic? Has anyone thought of doing something that big? You could create warning systems in villages without a resident Stormling. You could install the eternal embers in homes to provide warmth in the winter rather than burning wood that’s in short supply. We could change the way the world works with this.”
Duke smiled, something sparking in his eyes that she couldn’t quite define. “We’ve not done much in the way of combining magic and machinery the way the Stormlings have, not more than necessary anyway. Hunters spend most of their time out chasing the weather. There’s no time to tinker with inventions when the raw stuff is in such high demand. And inventions are big, flashy. Which means they’re risky. There would be a fair few in this city who would see an invention along those lines as a threat to be neutralized.”
“A threat? Making people safer is somehow dangerous?”
“Not in the sense you’re thinking. The danger is to a way of life, rather than a life itself. Our existence here is tolerated only so long as we stay quiet and small. When markets grow and gain more power, that’s when the military comes in and wipes it all clean. It has happened before, and it will happen again.”
“But none of these things are a threat to Stormlings. We still need them to protect the city. It’s not as if we’re trying to take away their magic. There is room for both in this world.”
The old man smoothed down his beard and surveyed her. “Maybe you’ll be the one to change the way the world works.”
“Me? But I can’t…”
“Locke couldn’t once upon a time. Now he can bring down firestorms and hurricanes.”
Her mouth went dry, and her skin buzzed with a restless something. There had been several scenarios in the back of her mind when she made the decision to come back here. She hoped she might discover more about Cassius’s plans or that the market sold some perfect magic object that would allow her to take the crown without Stormling powers. But one scenario had beat at her mind all day, even when she tried to pretend it was not an option. She could join these hunters and come back home having earned the magic in her blood.
Aurora thought about Nova, afraid to even discuss the Eye’s existence. She thought about the crammed, ramshackle homes she’d passed that people had no choice but to live in if they wanted the safety that Pavan provided. She thought about every time she’d ever heard of some traveling party that disappeared, lost to the dangers of the wildlands. Maybe she could do something. With magic of her own, she would gain the crown. Not Cassius. Not a husband. And then maybe she could change everything for the better.
No more treason or banishment. No need to sell the magic in secret. She thought of her favorite book again. She had no boat to brave the sea, no skills as a sailor, but perhaps she could have a similar voyage of her own. If they could not sail away to some better land, then the only choice was to make this land better.
A hand slipped over her shoulder, large and rough, and a low voice stole past the covering of her hood. “You came back.”
Rora’s body tightened. She slipped his hold and faced Locke head-on. His long hair was tied back from his face. He wore dark leather pants and a linen shirt that left his neck bare. He was strapped into the same leather harness as before, vials hanging off the straps. There were powders in various colors. Some of the larger vessels held raw magic—a thunderstorm, a thick fog, and a swirling, white-gray magic that she guessed was wind. He cleared his throat, and she dragged her gaze away.
He was even more criminally handsome than she remembered. Masculine and rugged. It wasn’t hard to picture him right in the middle of a firestorm, expression fierce and unafraid. Everything she desperately wanted to be. And if her imagination happened to paint him shirtless in that vision … well, who could blame her?
“Wait here a moment,” he said, “then we can go to the tent and discuss what I can do to help.”
Rora shifted her gaze away from him. “Actually, I’m not here for your help.”
She had made her decision. It wasn’t just about her distrust of Cassius or her yearning for freedom anymore. All her life she had been raised to believe that the kingdom came first. And what was a kingdom if not its people? She wanted to rule, wanted to help and change things, not just for herself but for them all.
Locke’s eyebrows flattened to a straight line. “Oh? Then why are you here?”
She turned to Duke. One side of the old man’s mouth tipped up, and she said, “I want to join your crew.”
* * *
“No. Absolutely not.”
Roar spun to glare at Locke, and it was a fierce and glorious glare indeed. If he were a different kind of man, he might have backed down. But that was not something he did. Ever. Call it a lesson of surviving childhood on the streets. He had not known much about dignity then, but he fought for what little he had at every turn. Even when his back was against the wall, even when the odds were impossible, even when he knew the reprieve would be far too short until he had to do it all again. He stood his ground. Always.
“Why not?” Roar demanded.
He had thought about her more today than he cared to admit, wondering what kind of home, if any, she had gone back to. But anything in this city would be safer for her than life in the wildlands.
“People die doing what we do. Do you want to die, little girl?”
Her fists balled at her hips, and she raised her chin defiantly.
“So now I’m a little girl again?”
Scorch it. Wrong thing to say. But he was too furious to do anything but double down.
“Yes. A naïve little girl.”
“I’m not naïve. I know exactly what I’m asking.”
She lifted a hand to her chest, grasping something beneath the fabric of her cloak. “I know very well what can happen. That’s why I want to learn from Duke. After all, he’s been hunting storms for decades. Maybe he should decide whether or not I have the potential.”
Duke brushed a strand of white-gray hair off his forehead, and leveled them both with a serious expression. His eyes lingered on Locke longer, and it was plain Duke was considering it. For a man hardened by a lifetime of destruction and peril, he had a dangerously soft heart.
Locke said, “We have enough people on the team. She’ll just be a liability.”
Roar winced, and Locke felt it like a blade slicing across his gut.
“What happened to wanting to help me?” she asked. “Did you decide insulting me was more fun?”
The last thing he wanted to do was insult her, but the girl wouldn’t listen. She appeared determined to make exactly the wrong choices, and he wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her until she saw sense. This was why he never associated with anyone but other hunters. They, at least, understood the dangers; and if they got themselves killed, it wasn’t Locke’s problem. But this girl, she would be his problem. He could not do what he did while tied to other people. One death on his conscience was enough.
He said, “I meant I would help you find a job or a place to stay. If you want to be involved so badly, Duke can teach you to run the booth here in our absence.”
She and Duke replied at the same time.
“I don’t want to run the booth.”
“That won’t do.”
Locke ran a hand through his hair, messing up the way he’d tied it back. “Why the blazes not?”
His responding growl had been for both of them, but it was Duke who answered. “The inventory we have now would last a fortnight at most. We won’t be back in this area for months. A job won’t be much help to her if it’s only temporary.”
Roar was looking at Locke with smug rebellion, and even as he wanted to shake her, he envisioned ways that he could wipe that pretty smirk from her mouth.
“So we introduce her to one of the permanent vendors. One of them has to need help.”
Roar shook her head. “No. I can’t stay here. I need to leave with you all. As soon as possible.”
There she was, spinning him right around her finger again, turning all his ire into concern. “Why do you need to leave? What’s wrong?” He stepped closer, and she crossed her arms over her chest.
“That’s my business. I wouldn’t want to make myself any more of a liability by involving you.”
He ground his teeth together, before throwing his head back with an aggravated growl.
“This life is not glamorous,” Duke told her. “We travel constantly. We sleep on the ground most nights. When we’re not in danger from storms, we’re in danger in cities where we are considered criminals. This life is not for the faint of heart.”
“There are things I do not know, things I will have to learn. But I am capable. I am familiar with sacrifice. I know what it is to make hard choices.”
“Tell me you’re not considering this,” Locke said to Duke.
The old man was silent for a long moment, both Locke and Roar looking to him for support. Duke rubbed at his mustache, a habit of his when he was thinking deeply. “Let’s think about this, Locke. She’s smart. And determined.”
“She’s a child.”
Roar’s shoulders hunched in Locke’s peripheral vision, and he swallowed back the guilt. He could apologize later. For now, it was imperative that he won this argument.
“You were a child when I brought you into the fold,” Duke said. “She’s a young woman with a good head on her shoulders. And if this is what she wants, I’m inclined to at least hear her out.”
Just like that, Roar’s shoulders straightened, and Locke turned to watch a devastating smile bloom across her mouth. His weakness when it came to her only made him more cross.
“What skills do you have?” he snapped at Roar.
“Skills?”
“Yes, skills. What can you do? Or do you just plan to tag along for the ride?”
A flush spread over her cheeks, and her voice was tentative when she answered, “I’m good on a horse. Very good.”
Where in the world would she have learned to ride? He quickly hardened his expression. “Horses are fine for travel, but they don’t do well in storms. They, unlike you, have good survival instincts.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Locke could have sworn he felt an updraft—the first sign that bad weather could occur—and he knew that this time he had pushed too far.
Roar marched toward him, spearing a finger into his chest, and said, “I can read and write. I can speak Taraanese, Finlaghi, and Odilarian. I can read maps. I know enough about grassland vegetation and wildlife to survive without a market to buy food and drink. I’m good with knives and a bow. I learn quickly, and I’m not afraid of hard work. And I’ve spent my entire life reading as much about storms as I could get my hands on.” For a moment, her voice cracked under the weight of her anger, but she took a huffing breath and continued: “I’m good with numbers. It’s been a while, but I think I can probably still draw the constellations from memory, which should make me decent at navigation. I can—”
“Enough.” Locke’s voice came out in a deep rasp. He captured her long, delicate finger in his fist before she could continue poking him. He felt short of breath at the sight of her—livid and lovely. “Enough.”
The old Locke might have kept arguing, and Roar would have met him toe-to-toe. But if becoming a storm hunter had taught him anything, it was that fighting head-on wasn’t always the way to win. Sometimes strategy was required. He met Duke’s eyes over her shoulder, and if he had thought Roar looked smug before, she had nothing on his mentor. The man raised his eyebrows in a challenge and asked, “You?”
He hated the idea of bringing someone into this dangerous life, but if it was going to happen regardless, he sure as hell wouldn’t hand her safety over to anyone else, not even Ransom. And at the very least, it would give him the opportunity to change her mind. He gritted his teeth and nodded his acceptance.
“Good.” Duke smiled. “Roar, Locke will follow you home and help you get everything you’ll need for the journey.”
Roar had been about to celebrate her victory, but she stopped short. “I don’t need his help.”
He smirked in response. “Then you’re going to be sorely disappointed, princess. Because I’m in charge of your training.”
Her eyes widened. “But … why? You didn’t even want me to come.” She asked Duke, “Can’t I learn from you?”
“It’s me or nothing,” Locke cut in. “Duke is just the mastermind these days. So if he teaches you, you’ll do nothing but pore over maps and measurements.”
She twisted her fingers together, clenching and unclenching them. After a moment, she sighed. “Fine. But I don’t need your help to get my things.”
“Well, you’re getting it anyway.” He stalked toward her and grabbed her elbow. She dug her heels in, and tried to break free.
“I can go without you. I’m not a child in need of a nursemaid.”
“What a coincidence. I’m no nursemaid.”
He gave another tug, and this one got her feet moving. She stopped fighting and said, “Fine. Let go of me.”
He released her as they approached one of the exits that led out of the market. “Don’t bother trying to run. I’ll catch you.”
She gave him a tight smile, her blue eyes blazing. “Why would I do a thing like that?”
She ducked into the dark passageway between the buildings that hid the market, and he followed her into the cramped space.
“Because you can’t help yourself. You have to fight everything.”
He couldn’t see more than her silhouette, but he heard her clearly as she spit back, “Or maybe I just have to fight men who try to bully me into doing as they say.”
He sucked in a breath through his gritted teeth.
“And another thing—” She stepped out of the darkness, and the rest of her words were muffled. He turned sideways and worked to squeeze himself through the narrow opening of the passageway.
He knew something was wrong the moment he emerged. He spun, pulling one of the blades from his hip, but ground to a halt when he saw Roar. She was panting with exertion, and her glare was a dare to say something. Sprawled at her feet was a man groaning in pain. Blood streamed down his face from a broken nose, but his hands were too busy cupping his groin to stem the flow.
“What?” Roar barked. “He tried to rob me.”
Locke lifted his hands, holding back a smile. “You’ll get no complaints from me.” He narrowed his eyes toward the man. He was about as tall as Roar but near double her weight. An impressive takedown. Though in Locke’s opinion, the thief wasn’t in nearly enough pain. “Want to kick him again before I turn him over to the market’s enforcers?” he asked.
Roar’s lips pressed into a line, the edges trembling upward like she fought a laugh. “No. The first kick was hard enough.”
He lugged the man up from the ground, jerking him up to his tiptoes. The thief wailed at the movement, but one good shake shut him up. “She might be forgiving,” he growled, “but the enforcers won’t be. They don’t take kindly to thieves preying on their clientele.”
He dragged the man toward the tunnel, but stopped first to meet Roar’s gaze. “I’ll be right back.” She smiled innocently in response, and he knew. “You’re not going to wait for me, are you?” Her smile grew. “Fine. Clearly, you can take care of yourself. Meet us at dawn on the eastern road just outside the city gates. Don’t be late or I’ll leave you.”
“I’ll be there,” she promised. “Tell Duke I said thank you.”
The thief started groaning again, and Locke shoved him into the passageway. “I don’t get a thank-you?”
“Maybe you’ll get it when I’m no longer angry that you called me a liability.”