Storm Born (20 page)

Nervous comments and demanding questions echoed through the hall, but I didn’t stop to answer them. I slowed down near the window I’d shattered. Beyond it, a chunk of the school walls and roof had been blown away, exposing the storm raging outside. Rain pounded the tile floor and the shattered rubble piled on top of it. Cold air pushed against my frigid body. I couldn’t remember what it was like to be warm, and constantly moving would only keep my body temperature raised for so long.
 

I looked at the crowd of huddled survivors.
 

“Stay here for two minutes after I get down, then–”
 

Light flashed behind me. Then the survivors began to scream. I whirled around. The Stormkind had appeared on the edges of the wall it had ruined. Lightning dashed the sky, illuminating the slashes of rain and its disturbing, translucent body.
 

It could see all of us, a smorgasbord of life force.
 

I faced it fully. It was already running. I thought about creating a thick wall of ice between the survivors and the Stormkind. I felt a familiar chill wrap around my bones and lifted my hands, pushing them at the rushing Stormkind. Frost circled my wrists and burst from my palms, rapidly interweaving and lacing together until a solid wall was formed. I could see the shape of the Stormkind beyond it, the brightness of its skeleton. Gritting my teeth, I made the wall deadlier. I thought of icicles like spikes stabbing out toward the Stormkind. Frost snaked through the ice wall and obeyed my command, jabbing outward like a spiked booby trap.
 

The Stormkind backed away, but I knew it wasn’t going to leave. I was really going to have to fight it. I turned to look at the survivors.
 

If they didn’t go slack-jawed, they gasped. If they didn’t shriek, they screamed. Everyone was terrified of me.
 

Even my family backed away. Mom hid James behind her for protection.
 

Protection from me.
 

A lance of heartache struck my chest.
 

All the while, I felt trickles of warmth sliding through my skin. The enticing lure of hundreds of life forces, each one more tantalizing than the last.
 

And close. So close…
 

“Ava…” My dad tried. “How… Your eyes…”
 

He looked like he didn’t know me. He stepped back like he was afraid of me. It was then that I knew my eyes were likely bleached of color, and glowing. The same way Declan’s had.
 

The same way a Stormkind’s did.
 

I should have looked away, kept them from seeing me as I was. But it was like looking at the faces of survivors dragging their broken bodies from a car crash. I couldn’t look away, not even when I knew I wanted to. This was the last time I would ever see them.
 

Shame slid its ropes around my heart, cinching tight and squeezing my chest until I couldn’t breathe. This was how they would remember me. Not as the klutzy, curious girl they’d raised, not as the daughter who bought them time to hide in the Centennial, not as the big sister who held her little brother when he was scared.
 

They would remember my glowing eyes. The hunger growing inside me.
 

They would remember the monster that wore their daughter’s face. Just as I would remember the confusion and horror carved into their faces now.
 

The lance plunged deeper into my constricted heart, and split it in two.
 

“Get them out.” were the only words I could shout. My voice was ragged and desperate. Shaking. “Please.”
 

I pointed to the window then turned around and raced away from the crowd. I couldn’t be around them while I was fighting the Stormkind. I had no idea how much control I did– or didn’t– have right now. I dragged more power from the storm raging above me. It filled me like a knife filled its sheath. It was simple and right. Nothing else in the world made more sense to me now.
 

I couldn’t see if the survivors were running from or listening to me, but I felt the heat of their life forces sliding across my back like a rippling heat wave. Gritting my teeth, I pushed against the wall or thorny ice, shoving it toward the Stormkind. It leaped away and raised its arm. I staggered back and shielded my face as its arm slashed down. A bolt of lighting smashed into the ice wall, shattering it with a single loud crack. Chunks of heavy ice battered my body like baseballs. I yelped and lowered my arm, seeing the Stormkind rushing at me.
 

I pushed out my hands, my fingers capturing the cold wind and blasting it at the Stormkind. Flakes of snow were swept up with it.
The Stormkind didn’t move in either direction. It just stood there and stared at me. 
 

Then its head snapped left. To where the survivors were piling out of the broken window. Not all of them were taking the route I offered, and I couldn’t really fault them for that. All I could do was hold the Stormkind off, and pray to God that Hadrian and the other Precips were on their way. They were the professionals in this situation. I was the idiot who couldn’t think more than one step ahead.
 

And that was the last thing I needed to think right then.
 

Maybe my confidence was what made my power slip. Maybe it was exhaustion. It didn’t matter in the end. The Stormkind still found its shot at me and took it.
 

Electricity danced between its fingers, then fired it straight at me. 
 

The attack happened too fast. Even if I could have prepared, there was nothing I could do. The blast hit me square in the chest. The bolts of lightning were smaller than the ones tearing from the sky, but no less agonizing. 
 

I was the wick on a Roman candle. Every cell in my body exploded with a snap, every nerve burning to a cinder. Invisible hornets stabbed my flesh. Each beat of my heart was a fist that threatened to shatter like glass. I knew I was screaming, but I couldn’t hear myself past the pain. Couldn’t think through it. Could only absorb it, and hope I wouldn’t die.
 

When it ended, I was on the floor. I don’t remember falling or hitting the wet, freezing tile. The electrocution was over and I was able to see again, yet I could still feel the tremors wracking my body. Even my eyes throbbed when I cracked them open.
 

The Stormkind towered over me, as if debating on finishing me off. It had no face, aside from its glowing eyes. No emotions or intent that I could read. There was no reasoning with something like this. It was so far beyond human, so intense in its power, that it could be considered a god.
 

Which was why I was so stunned when it didn’t kill me. It turned and stalked away.
 

Relief flooded my sore body, but it was short-lived, because the Stormkind didn’t abandon me out of mercy. It was going after the larger targets that escaped through the window. The herd of humans it could devour, one after the other. 
 

It was going after my family.
 

I rolled onto my stomach, dragging myself to the window. The Stormkind leaped through it and disappeared from my sight. The fear I felt right then was as strong and as sharp as any ounce of pain I’d felt tonight. I had tried to do the right thing, a simple thing, and all I had done was make it worse.
 

That seemed to be a trend, as of late.
 

Ignoring the cynic shouting in my head, I clutched the edges of the window ledge and pulled myself to my knees. Wind and rain slapped my face and threw my drenched hair away from my shoulders. Glass scraped my knees and dug into my palms. 
 

Lightning sparked through the sky, illuminating the slush and mud below. The survivors were screaming, each of them running in a different direction from the Stormkind that landed behind them.
 

The entity reacted quickly, without deterrence. Bolts pounded into the ground at seemingly wild directions. Each strike blocked the direction of a survivor, forcing them to find another route.
 

But there wasn’t one, because the strikes weren’t random.
 

The Stormkind was corralling them like sheep to slaughter.
 

And it 
would
 be a slaughter, unless I could stop it.
 

I was feeling the effects of using my powers. My energy was all but gone, and my head was a nail being steadily smashed with a hammer. My adrenaline had gone as far as it could go. Desperation and survival instinct were going to have to be my secret weapons now.
 

I wasn’t sure how much I could concentrate to stop the Stormkind, so I didn’t try to. I felt the air around me, imagined it cooling until I could feel it in my bones. The rain changed into snow. White flakes twisted through the air, and as the temperature dropped, the slush hardened into ice. 
 

The Stormkind reached up to grab lightning from the clouds, but it was too cold. I glanced up, and saw that I had altered not only the temperature or the rain, but the very clouds.
 

My storm had taken over.
 

The survivors were confused at the sudden change, but they didn’t stand still long enough to see what had caused it. All but three of them scattered.
 

Three familiar faces looked up into mine. Three people I loved enough to do a reckless stunt like this.
 

Three people I was about to lose.
 

There was no way I could make it down before the Stormkind attacked them, or me. If they were going to get away, it had to be now. 
 

And it had to be without me.
 

I smiled weakly and waved at them, hoping they would know it was safe to leave me and run, but my eyes never left the Stormkind as it turned to face me. 
 

I pictured the snow getting thicker, turning a snowstorm into a whiteout. I had to trust that my family would make it through the blizzard. I’d done all I could for them. Now I had to take care of myself.
 

I pushed back from the window ledge and staggered to my feet. I raced to the broken wall and peered over the ledge. It wasn’t a far drop, but I was worried about the ice forming at the bottom. If I slipped when I landed, I could break my ankle or worse.
 

So I crouched low, gripped the ledge, and dropped off. The tips of my boots skidded until they found purchase in the cracks of the outer wall, and I was able to climb down without any trouble.
 

Ironic, considering that I was running directly into new trouble.
 

I pressed against the wall and eased around the corner to where I would see the Stormkind, wondering if it figured out what I had been doing–
 

A blast of wind slammed into me and knocked me onto the ice. I yelped at my hard crash and the cold. When I looked up again, the Stormkind was looming over me, electricity sparking from its fingertips.
 

If I had to guess what it was feeling now, it was probably rage.
 

I raised my hands, even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to defend myself, unable to see anything but the entity that would rip my life force out of my throat–
 

A shadow and a blur of silver moved behind the Stormkind. I saw the motion
through
its jagged, flickering body. Then I watched the tip of a sword punch through the skeleton of the Stormkind, out of the front of its chest.
 

I jumped as much as the Stormkind did, clamping a hand over my mouth to stifle my scream while its back arched. The motion was oddly human, and for a moment my heart broke for it.  When the pale silver blade left the Stormkind, a gaping hole remained in its skeleton. The light within it began to blink on and off, quickly at first then slower and slower. Then too slow. Then not at all.
 

As soon as the light diminished, the Stormkind’s body dissolved into a puddle of water. The thunderstorm stopped instantly, the clouds lightening and the rumble of thunder disappearing.
 

It was dead. I could barely wrap my mind around the concept. A Stormkind was dead at my feet, killed by a sword.
 

No
, I realized.
Not just any sword. A tempest-blade.
 

I looked up, fear crushing my chest as my mind registered Turve towering over me. He grinned cruelly, dark blue eyes shimmering with malice.
 

“There you are. We were not sure you would come. Thank the Primes that your Guardian is lax with your safety.”
 

I was too stunned to move, so it was easy for him to roughly grab my arm and haul me to my feet. I slipped across the ice, but Turve didn’t slow down. He kept pulling me up the hill, where the rest of the Mistrals were waiting.
 

My heart as pounding as I saw Ferno standing vigilantly near the top, his sandy eyes riveted to me even as Turve dragged me past him. To my left, I spotted Declan and a girl on her knees. He looked paler than usual, but he grinned and wiggled his fingers at me, the harmless gesture making me shudder. His other hand was firmly clamped on the girl’s shoulder, his fingers drifting far too low along her chest.
 

Her head was tilted forward, her matted, dark hair hiding her face, but there was something about her that seemed familiar–
 

Turve yanked me in front of him and stopped us both. I staggered and turned my head to see the man in front of me. My legs trembled.
 

I knew him immediately. His steely hair, hard face, and dead black eyes were forever etched in my memory, just as the feel of his fist was when it slammed into my chest, along with a crystal blade.