Eira shifted to face him, keeping silent as Cullen spoke, not wanting to interrupt or rush him in any way.
“First, he wanted to provide for my mother and I. But, then, after my Awakening…everything changed.”
“What happened with your Awakening that made things change?” she probed gently when his hesitation dragged on. Cullen looked at her with wary eyes. “You don’t have to say if you don’t want to,” she added hastily.
“I want to,” he murmured. “I’ve just never told anyone before.” The way he said that made Eira go from intrigued to insatiably curious. “You’re not the only one who’s hurt someone with your magic.”
“What?” Eira blinked. What was he implying? This was Cullen, Prince of the Tower, ascended lord, noble family, the first Windwalker since the Empress. Perfect in every way.
If the truth ever got out, my family would be ruined… The echo of Cullen she’d heard in the Tower months ago returned to her. Was this the secret he’d meant?
“When I… When my powers were first manifesting, my mother tried to keep them secret. We lived in the rural East and the instincts to hide Windwalkers are still very much alive in the people—in her.”
Eira knew that Windwalkers were once hunted by King Jadar in the West during the Burning Times. It was a stain on the history of the Solaris Continent that could never be expunged and should never be forgotten. That dark time prompted what many thought was the end of the Windwalkers—until Vhalla Yarl. Then, it came to light that Windwalkers hadn’t truly been extinct, just extremely rare and carefully hidden.
“Your mother didn’t want you to go to the Tower?” Eira asked.
“No. But my father insisted it’d be for the best, that my doing so could even give us all a better life. But she was insistent. All the while, my powers continued to grow.”
“What happened?” Eira could tell by the slump to Cullen’s shoulders and the way he kept raking his fingers through his hair, it wasn’t good.
“My father took me to the coast, determined to deliver me to the Tower himself. My mother chased after us. They argued and…I…I just wanted—” He sighed. “What I wanted doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is I summoned a windstorm. It destroyed the entire port they were building north of Hastan.”
“I heard about this,” she breathed. The incident had been the talk of the docks for weeks in her hometown. “It was going to be a ferry stop from Oparium up to the North via the rivers.” He nodded wearily. “But they said it was just a freak tempest that swept in from the sea?”
“No, the tempest was me.”
“But… I’ve never…” She was trying to make sense of what Cullen was saying and the news she’d been given by the sailors as a child.
Cullen swayed, staggered over to a nearby bench, and sat. “The Empire covered it up.”
“But there must’ve been—”
“Dozens of people? Yes, there were. They were coerced, paid, and bribed to keep their mouths shut, if they knew anything about the truth at all. My powers were secret, so some people really did think it was a freak storm.” Cullen stared up at her with hollow eyes. He could still see that storm. He was watching it now. Eira didn’t need him to tell her because she’d seen that expression in herself countless times.
She sat next to him, their thighs and shoulders touching. Eira wondered if, for once, she was the stable one. If he’d never told anyone before her then she couldn’t imagine what he was feeling finally sharing this burden. Her magical incident had never had the hope of being secret.
“Did you kill anyone?” she whispered.
“I don’t know.” He buried his face in his hands. “I don’t know, Eira, and it haunts me. But every day I have to sit, and smile, and preen, and be the golden child that everyone expects of the first Windwalker after Vhalla Yarl.That’swhy they covered it up. Because the Empire couldn’t let the first Windwalker after Vhalla be a murderer and a herald of destruction. The reputation of the Windwalkers was already so fragile and the East already had too many reasons to hide us.”
Eira grabbed his wrists and gently pulled his hands from his face. She ducked down, low enough to look him in the eyes. “You’re none of those things. You were young. You didn’t mean to do it.” Mother above, she sounded like Aunt Gwen.
“Neither did you,” he whispered. The words struck a chord that resonated so loudly in her that Eira felt numb. “I’m so sorry I never said anything to you. I’m sorry I wasn’t kinder. Our pasts… I could’ve been so much better to you. I could’ve lightened your burden by sharing in it sooner. I’m sorry I—”
“Stop.” Eira shook her head. A trickle of laughter escaped her. “It’s insane to think, this whole time you knew what I felt.”
“And now you hate me for keeping it from you.”
“I’mrelieved.” Eira looked him back in the eyes. “Cullen this is the first time that I—” Her throat closed over the words.
Cullen’s hands shifted, fingers lacing with hers as he faced her. “That you don’t feel so alone?” he finished for her.
Eira studied his face. Everything in her screamed for her to escape this moment. She had promised herself she’d guard her heart. After Ferro, no one could be trusted. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t lean in, no matter how tempting it was, and kiss his mouth. She couldn’t ask him to hold her as he once had…no, hold her even tighter.
“That I don’t feel like such a freak.” Eira pulled her hands away and forced a smile as Cullen’s expression fell.
“You’re anything but a freak.” He reached for her again, but Eira stood.
