I freeze like the people around me but not because the thunder has affected me. I know her voice. Sure, the last time I heard it she was wailing and shrieking, but there’s no denying the lilt she speaks with, the gentle rush of sound like a waterfall lives beneath each spoken sound. I stand and turn slowly.
She’s just like an older version of the gargoyle baby I saw in the nest. Her skin is porcelain in texture and a soft caramel color; her eyes are deep brown and framed with long dark lashes; her hair rests across one shoulder and washes down her side to her slender hips and the longest legs I’ve ever seen only partially covered by the fine silver gown she wears. Her ears are round, not like mine, and she glows around the edges. Her wings shimmer in a cascade like her voice, except that… I frown… one is broken, the fine gossamer webbing torn and draping closer to her body on her left side.
“You’re the Storm,” I say, even though it’s stating the obvious.
“We are the Storm,” she corrects me, her mouth drawing into a serious line. “You, me, and… him.”
I follow the line of her arm and pointed finger, sucking in a sharp breath and spinning back to her before I see Baelen.
“Come with me,” she says, gliding past me in his direction, not quite touching ground.
“No.”
She pauses. “Why are you afraid of him?”
I choke. “I’m not afraid of him. I can’t look at him because if I don’t… I can pretend he’s not… gone.” I gasp against the pain clawing up through my stomach into my chest. I didn’t think there was enough of my heart left to break any further, but pieces are tearing out of me one by one.
She pauses beside me, her dress swishing around her legs. “But… he’s not dead.”
Now I’m truly frozen. My heart leaps as everything else stops. “What?”
“Close your eyes, Marbella. Listen. Tell me what you hear.”
I don’t have to close my eyes to know what she’s talking about. “I hear a heartbeat.”
“And what do you feel in every part of this room?”
“Thunder.”
“Well,” she says with a gentle quirk of her eyebrow. “It’s not my heartbeat and I didn’t cause the thunder. Neither did you so…”
“Baelen!” I’m moving before I know it, racing past the Storm, and zigzagging through the frozen people. I skid and drop to my knees at his side. I swill my hands across his face and neck, still afraid to touch him, but close enough to sense… he’s warm.
My heart can’t take any more pain. “I don’t understand. You said he’s the storm too. How?”
“The Elven Command was right about you being able to share your power. But they were completely wrong about the timing. They couldn’t take your power just now because you already gave it away.”
She gives me a smile, but it’s a sad one. “On the night you became the Storm Princess, you gave your power to Baelen Rath.”
