“Radane!”
White fog drifted around the tree, and Kiela stepped back. The fog writhed, and she saw the flash of ember eyes. She couldn’t tell where one cloud bear began and where they ended—they were a mesh of cloud.
A moment later, they parted, and Radane fell onto the ground at Kiela’s feet, hands and knees slapping into the vine-covered ground. Kiela helped her stand. “Are you all right?”
“That was . . .” Radane sucked in a gulp of air. “Very, very strange. Varrik?”
“Gone.” Kiela glanced toward the sea beyond the cove. She wondered if the ship was as fast and as sturdy as they claimed. She wasn’t certain Alyssians knew how bad the storms could be in the outer islands. Maybe they should have stayed.
Except that was dangerous.
No, surely they knew what they could handle. “He was sent to find you.”
“To kill me or crown me?”
“Kind of think the former.” Kiela added quickly, “But I don’t think he wanted to. I think he wanted you to escape.” She helped Radane through the garden. It was slow going—Radane’s legs wobbled as if she hadn’t used them in months, and the vines and brambles were thick.
By the time they reached the front of the cottage, Larran had the door partway open. They all piled inside. Caz and Meep were already in the kitchen, along with the chicken, and Caz was lighting several of the lanterns with the fire-starter. Between the dark clouds and the vine-covered windows, it was nearly as dark as night within the cottage.
“It’s going to be a bad one,” Larran said grimly.
“Your merhorses?”
“They’ll be fine. They’ll dive.”
“What about the village?” Kiela asked. A lot of the homes were close to the water. They’d mostly escaped damage during the last storm, but it was clear that a stronger one could rip the roofs off the buildings, bash the boats, destroy the dock—there was a lot of harm that strong wind and rain could do.
Using his hammer, he knocked a board off the front window.
“If it is as bad as all that,” Radane said, sinking into one of the chairs, “are you sure you shouldn’t leave the boards? I know that I feel safer with them.”
“Just one. I want to see the sky.” He peered out. “Whoa. Yeah, it’s going to be a bad one. They’ll have sounded the harbor bell. The villagers know to stay in.” He didn’t sound certain, though.
She wondered how bad a “bad one” could be. What if it flooded the village? What if it leveled it? What if . . . “What about the warship?” Kiela asked. “Do you think it got clear in time? Imperials don’t know how bad the storms are out here. They don’t have this kind of weather in Alyssium.”
Radane waved her hand in the air. “Please tell me you are not really worrying about the people who came here expressly to bring me to my death?”
“Captain Varrik didn’t want to,” Kiela reminded her.
“Yes, but he was still going to follow orders if he found me.”
She wasn’t so certain about that. Maybe, but maybe not. He hadn’t had to invent the lie about the poison berries, after all. And she had no idea what he would have chosen to do if he’d discovered her library boat. “You don’t know that for certain. Sometimes we have to choose between terrible options. You don’t know what pressures he was under.” Kiela had absconded with crates of priceless books. Radane had impersonated an imperial investigator. Perhaps Captain Varrik had volunteered to search for Radane because he knew he was the only one who wouldn’t try hard to find her. “He seemed like a good person.”
Radane sighed. “He is a good person. But now his fate is up to, well, fate. I told you a single wind-speaker can’t stop a storm. There’s nothing I can do to help. We just have to ride it out and hope for the best—”
Kiela glanced at Caz.
Caz scampered into the back room and emerged with a slim volume:On Storms.Swinging himself up onto the table, he plopped it in front of Radane and opened it. “Do you know this spell? It says it’s only taught to wind-speakers.”
Radane peered at it. “Yes, but—”
“You need a coven to cast it,” Kiela said.
“Exactly,” Radane said.
Caz tapped his tendrils against the table. Agitated, Meep scooted around the table legs. It would be a risk, but was it a necessary risk? Kiela looked over at Larran. “Do you think the ship is in danger?” she asked him again.
He checked out the window once more. “Yes. A storm this size? Absolutely, they’re in danger. If it capsizes, though, I can’t save them all. There are too many of them.”
