“City up ahead!” Kalani yelled over the lament of the wind. I forced myself to lift my head enough to peer over her shoulder. My stomach contracted at the sight of a wall of raging dark storm clouds bursting with electric blue lightning. Each flash illuminated the mass like a deadly warning.
“We have to fly through that?”
“Yes! Hold tight.”
I held fast as we dove toward it. The wind tunnel tore at my clothes and battered my eardrums. My stomach dropped thenshot up into my throat as we dipped and rose, riding the air waves.
A rumble of thunder vibrated through me, and lightning split the sky mere feet in front of us.
Raja veered to avoid it. But another bolt ripped the sky to our left, forcing us to dip and swerve again.
Kalani cursed. The world darkened. The temperature plummeted, and my lungs filled with ice, each breath a dull burn. The sky growled, lunging at us with electric fingers. Raja wove between the bolts, but they came faster. Denser. Creating an impossible net to navigate.
How much farther before we broke free of this barrier?
Crack.
Kalani yelled something, but her words were garbled and muted beneath the ringing in my ears.
Light seared my vision. We tipped suddenly into a rotation, and I didn’t adjust my grip quickly enough.
I fell.
Away from Raja and Kalani and into the claws of the storm.
“Leela!” Kalani’s cry was snatched away by the wind.
Arms wrapped around me, halting my downward trajectory. Mercury eyes looked down at me.
Zarael smiled wryly. “We must stop meeting like this.”
A sob broke from my lips, half a laugh now. She hugged me tighter, and I clung to her as the storm around us calmed.
“The others!” I searched the sky around us.
“They’re safe. Guards are escorting them to land now. Look.”
The storm parted, revealing a red mountain below.
A mountain with a huge hole at the top. A fucking volcano?
But the city itself was built up against the volcano, on ledges and platforms, so that it looked like the volcano was wearing a coat made of houses. I spotted the others ahead of us and slightlyabove, surrounded by vayujaari with whirlwinds for legs and huge spears crackling with blue energy.
“They are the storm,” Zarael explained. “But they know not to harm your kin now.”
Kalani looked down at me, her face a pale smudge. Thewhooshof wings flanked us a moment later as Yudh and Dhoona appeared on either side of us.
We dipped toward a platform jutting out of the mountain. Kalani landed first with the brothers close behind.
Zarael took us down last, landing lightly and setting me on my feet. I held on to her for a little longer until my legs remembered how to take my weight.
The guards shot back up into the air, leaving us on the wide platform that ended in an impressive stone building. It reminded me of a Greek temple with all its white pillars. A dark doorway was visible beyond them.
“I had a feeling you’d come visit,” Zarael said, pulling me out of my thoughts. The others dismounted and joined us, their mounts huffing, chests heaving from the exertion of navigating the storm.
I stepped back, standing on my own steam.
“You know what’s happened?” Yudh said. “How did you know Leela wasn’t trapped in the royal domain?”
