“You can only put this off for so long,” Lord Heron said.
“Just do it!” Altair snapped.
Reluctantly, Lord Heron bowed. I backed away slowly from the crack in the door before he could turn around, feeling for the mechanism with my hand. I held my breath as my fingers brushed over the indentation again.
As it slowly swung back into place, I heard Lord Heron say to Altair, “The time will come when you have to make a choice. The girl. Or you.”
I suppressed a whimper as my heart slammed painfully into my ribs. The emperor barely knew me, so it wasn’t hard to guess what he would choose.
But that didn’t mean I was going to wait around for the ax to fall.
That night, Ibarricaded the bathing room with heavy furniture, knowing it was likely not going to keep the emperor out of my room if he decided he wanted to sacrifice me. But with the door to my room locked and the bathing chamber sealed off, I felt marginally more in control.
I lit every candle I could find until my room blazed with light. Outside, the wind howled. I threw open my window despite the freezing cold. As the wind surrounded me, it chased away some of my fear. I remembered what Shazeera had told me before we came here—that I wasn’t a sheep. I could defend myself.
Calling upon the wind had saved me from the assassination attempt in the hot springs, which I now knew must have been not only ordered by Lord Heron but also likely demanded by that creature.
I paced around my room, my thoughts racing through my head. Should I attempt an escape with Shazeera? Perhaps we could go to Naharu to see if the paths leading there were more accessible. I thought again of the mountain goats and the conspicuous lack of horses. It seemed the city and the palace were inaccessible to anything but eagles and goats.
Would Talon be willing to help? Shazeera trusted him. He had always acted honorably, even when I told him his people had been slaughtering my own outside of battle. But I would be asking him to go against the wishes of not only his cousin, but the emperor. How could I trust that he would choose to help me—a virtual stranger—over his own flesh and blood?
Assuming I did escape, then where did that leave my people? The treaty would be void, and the emperor would not only resume the war, but likely destroy us this time.
Lord Heron had said that every day, Ozul grew in strength and wouldn’t always remain in the shadows. What happened when he was freed?
The wind seemed to wrap itself around me, gently rustling my hair as if trying to bring comfort. Shazeera had said I should try to communicate with it, and despite my trepidation, I was running out of options.
Somewhere inside my mind, I sensed Shazeera. And although the short burst of wind power in the hot springs hadn’t hurt our connection, the distance made it feel muffled. Maybe it was because of this that I suddenly became aware of another presence in my mind.
It felt completely different than Shazeera. Where her presence was as familiar to me as my own heartbeat, this felt alien and immensely powerful. It wasn’t a natural part of my mind like Shazeera. No, this was another being reaching out and making a temporary connection with me.
So many questions raced through my mind, things I had always wanted to know, but I got the sense that this being wouldn’t stay with me long. Even now, I could feel the strain of our connection weighing me down.
Who are you?I asked.
The long pause made me almost give up when suddenly I heard a whisper drift through my mind.
I am Mistral, the spirit of the wind.
Mistral. The name tugged at my subconscious, like maybe I had heard it before in a different context.
How am I able to speak with you?Hearing the spirit’s voice in my mind so clearly after years of sensing the wind’s power but never being able to communicate made my stomach flutter with excitement.
Your blood calls to me, through a bond formed with your family long ago,Mistral said.
I stilled.My sire’s family?I thought of all the times I had asked Ama about my sire, and of her complete avoidance of the subject.
Yes.
Eagerly, I asked,Who is my sire?
A wind caller like you.
Wind caller. I repeated the unfamiliar words to myself. This didn’t really give me much to go on, and yet, it was so much more than I had been told. So my abilitydidcome from my father’s bloodline. Who was he? How did he possess magic more powerful than my mother’s?
A wave of fatigue hit me, and I closed my eyes.
You don’t have the strength and training to maintain a connection with me.
