I don’t think I can hold it back anymore.
A furious scream tears from my throat, a sound born of desperation and fury. The sand starts to overwhelm us, rising over our heads.
The storm rages above us, violent and all-encompassing, and then—suddenly—there’s only silence.
The world is still.
I kick furiously, pulling Aren with me by the arm. My head breaks the surface of the sand, and I gasp for air. Sand covers every inch of me—my ears, my nose, my mouth. I cough and spit, shaking out my hair, clawing at my face to free myself from its suffocating grip. Beside me, Aren takes a ragged breath, choking on sand as we swim up through the loose grains, freeing ourselves inch by inch.
The storm hasn’t vanished. It’s all around us, but it’s…frozen. Suspended in time. Sand particles hang in midair, shimmering and still, as if caught in some unseen web. Everything is silent, the unnatural stillness broken only by our retching and coughing.
“You did it,” Aren says, her voice hoarse as she stares wide-eyed at the frozen storm.
“It’s not me,” I say, barely above a whisper.
“What?” She looks at me in confusion.
“I didn’t do this.” I look around, awe and dread twisting in my chest as I take in the surreal scene. Through the suspended storm, a figure emerges, walking toward us with deliberate, measured steps. The sand shifts away from him. The Whisting clears a path, blowing the grains aside like a gentle breeze.
It’s a young man, probably a few years younger than me. His skin is pale, his tall nose sharp and angular. His dark hair is smooth and brushed back from his face, not a single strand out of place. He walks with his hands clasped behind his back, as if he’s taking a casual stroll in a pleasant garden. His expression is flat, bored, utterly indifferent to the storm around us.
He could be handsome, I think distantly, if he didn’t look so unimpressed by everything.
I struggle to get to my feet, sand pouring off me. My body is heavy and sluggish with exhaustion as I offer Aren a hand. She takes it, and manages to rise as well, though the sand clings to her. She is still buried up to her knees. She braces herself, her breathing shallow, her gaze fixed on the stranger.
The man stops several paces away. He’s cool and calculating as he peers down his nose at us. We’re insects he’s discovered crawling in the dirt.
His posture has gone from casual to rigid, his presence unnervingly commanding. For a long, agonizing moment, he says nothing, letting the silence stretch. Then he snaps his fingers, and the frozen particles are released from their paralysis, but instead of resuming the storm, the sand falls gently back to earth.
Finally, in a voice as smooth and cold as the edge of a blade, the stranger says, “Prince Dietan, I presume?”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Aren
Just when I think our luck has finally turned, here comesthisprick.
I’ve always prided myself on reading people as soon as they sit down at my bar, and there’s something unsettling about this haughty stranger. His face is too perfect and his voice too smooth. “Smug” sums him up.
I dislike him immediately.
And then, of course, there’s this whole business of how he stopped the storm with his immaculate control of the Whisting. At least that’s what I assume happened, since Dietan says he didn’t do it. I’m grateful this stranger saved us, but his attitude I could do without.
“Do you know this guy?” I ask Dietan.
Dietan doesn’t get a chance to answer as the stranger speaks for him. “I believe Prince Dietan and I have yet to be introduced. However, we know all who enter our domain, barmaid.”
Talk about an arrogant bastard. Even more annoying is that whoever this guy is, he doesn’t even think I’m worthy of a name.
“And you are?” Dietan asks.
“King Osian’s emissary.” He bows elegantly.
Why does he look familiar? I squint in the bright sunshine and study his face, but I can’t place him. Maybe he traveled through Evandale? I’m good at remembering faces, even ones who only passed through the Raven’s Beak.
But I’m coming up short.
He looks to be about twenty years old, with thin lips and striking blue eyes. He carries himself with a grace that gives the impression that he’s floating.
