On the second day, Caylus pulled me aside to show me some drawings he’d done with modifications he suggested to the saddle make it more lightweight, flexible, and comfortable. He also had a list of critiques. Apparently, if Res adjusted the angles of certain turns, he could gain more momentum through them, thereby conserving energy. Caylus had even drawn diagrams with a series of numbers and arrows I didn’t understand but that he promised were very important.
He’d barely finished speaking before I was back in the saddle, putting it to the test.
It was out on one of those flights that I noticed the clouds. Thick and steely gray, they gathered on the horizon with alarming speed, carried by a rising wind.
Res and I banked back toward the ship, which we’d left a few miles behind with an aim to test his endurance on long flights. By the time we alighted on the deck, Samra was already shouting orders to her crew, the storm visible from the ship.
“Can Res do something?” she asked as I joined her at the quarterdeck.
“We should be able to turn aside the worst of it,” I replied. “But full-blown storms usually take more than one crow to control. You should still take whatever precautions you normally would.”
As the crew prepared the ship, Caylus aiding them, Res and I joined Kiva at the bowsprit to face down the impending storm.
“It’s strangely fitting, isn’t it?” she asked.
“I love a good storm as much as the next person, but I could have done without this one.” The timing of it felt portentous. I glanced up at the snapping flag of theAizel, a slither of unease unfurling.
The wind came first, tugging at the tied-up sails and lashing waves against the hull. Then the storm enveloped us. What had been a metallic mass of gray clouds when I first spotted it had darkened into something black and raging, as if the very sky warned us to turn back. Rain began to fall in a curtain, and thunder boomed.
Then light split the sky open.
Keep that off us as best you can, I told Res, keeping my thoughts calm even as my nerves jittered. There was a stark difference between a crow controlling a storm they created and controlling one formed by nature. A real storm had a life to it, almost a soul.
And it didn’t like to be contained.
A bolt struck the water off the left side, spraying water into the air. The wind tore a sail free with a vicious howl. The crew rushed to tie it back down, but the wind had it in its grip.
Calm the wind.
Res’s eyes glowed a soft silver as power emanated down the cord. A moment later, the wind curtailed and quieted, allowing the crew to secure the sail. No sooner had they than the gale came screaming back, almost throwing Talon off his feet.
“Saints!” Kiva seized my arm with one hand and the ship railing with the other. The wind broke, but only just, and then thunder echoed. Rain lashed the deck, stinging my face and arms, and the sea pitched higher and higher.
Res screeched as a bolt of lightning forked to the side, deflected by his power. The thunder pounded like a drum, the sky flashing with light.
“He’s making it worse, Captain!” a voice called above the storm. Onis had seized Samra’s arm on the deck below. “Or else he’s incurred its wrath. I’ve never seen the like of this!”
The wind snapped Samra’s response away, and I gritted my teeth against the urge to yell at Onis. The storm needed my whole attention.
Yet before I could turn away, light sparked in the sky above them. Instinct took over, and I screamed for Res. His wings flared wide as the bolt struck, singeing the very air.
And somehow, he caught it.
The lightning bolt held fully formed above Onis’s and Samra’s heads. It twitched, fizzing in and out of shape like light diffusing through a crystal as Res struggled to hold it. Heat and light radiated off the bolt, casting the stunned faces of the crew in a ghastly glow.
Then Res thrust the bolt aside with a snap of his wings.
It struck the mainmast. Wood splintered in every direction, and the yard snapped, the sail tumbling and tangling into the netting and ropes below. The mast groaned and swayed in the heavy wind, listing hard to the side.
“Slow its fall!” I screamed at Res.
His earth crow power caught the mast a moment before it crashed into the deck, nearly crushing a crew member who’d scrambled away too slowly.
“That night-cursed demon nearly killed us all!” Onis cried.
“He just saved your life!” I yelled back.
Onis scowled. “This storm is his doing to start with. I—”
