“Quickly, El,” Hali says, panicsharpening her voice. “We need to getthe sail down.”
I don’t know what I’m doing, but I rush to help her with the boat’s sail. Her father was a fisherman, so she knows better than I do. I fumble with the ropes, my hands trembling, but finally the sail falls.
A smile tugs at my lips, but the triumph doesn’t last long.
“This was a mistake, Aella.” The cold voice freezes me in place, and my eyes widen with terror as they land on the man standing at the dock’s edge, two cloaked figures hovering behind him.
The Eagle.
“Grab her,” he says. “Kill the other. There is no room for disloyalty in the Aviary.”
Hali whimpers beside me, gripping tightly to my arm.
Fear clutches at my heart, a sharper pain than Hali’s fingernails biting into my skin. I shove her back and charge toward the cloaked men before they can board. I slam into one, knocking him into the other, and we fall to the dock.
“Go, Hali!” I scream at my friend.
One man grabs me, and I struggle against him as the other stands and makes for the boat.
“I can’t,” Hali says, snatching an oar and pushing off from the dock. “There’s no wind! Please, Notos.”
Don’t let her die. Please don’t let her die.
Something wild rises within me. Something chaotic. Destructive.
It’s too much—
I scream, and the wind screams with me.
The sail snaps open. Too much—too hard—and the boat careens through the water, crashing into a dock on the other side of the canal. It shatters, and Hali cries as her body is thrown, the sound cutting off as her head smashes into a wooden post and she falls into the water.
A sob rips from my throat as her hand disappears beneath the bubbling surface last, as though she’s reaching for me—begging me to save her.
A cold grip tightens around my neck, forcing my gaze up to the monster looming over me. The Eagle’s mouth twists into a sneer.
“Such a shame.”
I blink away the remnants of the repressed memory, but my unleashedtheïkóslatches on to the lingering pain.
The moment I took the ring off, it roared to life, rising from that hidden place within the depths of my soul.
The place it had been slumbering.
Suppressed.
The world is sharper, the air crisper. And rather than hearing the wind like a whisper, I hear it like a scream.
Fear forgotten, I breathe in deep, relishing the way the air dances through my fingers. I clench my hands into fists and pull—drawing the element toward me—watching with a mixture of horror and fascination as the soldier’s eyes go wide. He drops his sword, and both hands fly toward his throat as he falls to his knees, his face turning blue as he struggles to draw his next breath.
“Not…possible,” the soldier chokes out.
“It shouldn’t be,” I agree. Because he’s right.
The Anemoi never gifted control of the wind and skies. That power belonged to the gods and mythical beings in bedtime stories. The very idea of anyone else possessing it would be considered blasphemous.
Dangerous.
Cautiously, I step forward, picking his sword up off the ground.
