“My mom was ambushed by a Stormer when she was eight months pregnant with my sister. He left her alive, but the baby . . .” He clears his throat. “The worst part was, my mom wasn’t even a guardian. Feng was, and he’d just won a big fight against Raiden—one of the only victories the Gales have ever had. And, apparently, if you make Raiden look weak, he comes after you personally.”
He’s quiet for a minute and I struggle to figure out something to say. I mean, I thought what happened to my family was tough but . . .
“Anyway,” he says, “not surprisingly, my mom never got over it. All she wanted was revenge. She joined the Gales, signed up for every risky assignment she could. She actually volunteered to protect you, but the Gales went with Audra. So a few weeks later, when Solana needed a new guardian, my mom jumped all over it. By then I’d already enlisted in the Gales, so she left me there with Feng, promising us she’d be careful. But she only lasted two years before the Stormers caught up with them.” He glances to the north again. “Feng never got over it.”
Listening to him talk makes me realize why I never guessed the connection—besides how different they look. “Your dad doesn’t mind that you call him Feng?”
“Actually, it was his idea. After what happened to my mom, he wanted to make it as hard as possible for Raiden to know who his family is.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
I watch him glance north for the dozenth time and realize what he must be thinking. “You should be with the Gales right now.”
“I should be following my orders.”
“That’s dumb. You did your job. You told me where to go and I’m going there—I don’t need a babysitter for the rest. Go help your dad.”
Gus looks tempted, but he shakes his head. “The Gales had a reason for not bringing me with them.”
“Yeah, and your dad had a reason for sending his message to you.”
Gus stares at the dried blood on his thumb. Then he wipes it away on his pants. “He sent it to me so I could protect you.”
“Ugh—I’m so sick of that.”
I don’t want to be the useless weakling everyone has to protect.
I’m the last freaking Westerly.
I should be out there leading the charge.
Isn’t that what they’ve been training me for?
I’m still not sure how I’m going to handle the whole violence-makes-me-vomit thing, but if I’m ever supposed to take down Raiden, I’m going to have to start standing up and fighting.
“What are you doing?” Gus asks as I dive and touch down in the middle of the desert. “Is this where we’re going?”
I don’t answer, calling one Easterly, one Northerly, and one Southerly to my side and coiling them around each other to make a wind spike. It’s different from the way Audra taught me, but over the last few weeks I’ve learned they’re stronger this way. One of each wind.
I reach out my hands and call the Westerly I’m missing.
“So you can control the fourth wind,” Gus says, staring at the draft as it swirls around my waist.
“You thought I couldn’t?”
“I’d been starting to wonder.”
I roll my eyes and weave the Westerly around the wind spike, ordering the drafts to converge.
The gusts spin to a blur, twisting out of my grasp and hovering above my head as a crack splits down the center. Gus covers his head like he expects the spike to explode. But the dull outer shell simply rolls away, leaving a gleaming deep-blue spike with sharp points at each end and a glinting sheen.
“Whoa,” Gus breathes as he reaches slowly toward it. “Can I?”
I nod and he hesitates a second before he curls his fingers around it. “Crap it’s like . . . solid.”
I can’t help laughing. “That’s the power of four.”
“I guess.” He slices it through the air a few times before he turns to me. “You realize I’m never giving this back, right?”
“Oh, really?”
I whisper, “Come,” in Westerly and the spike launches out of his hand and floats straight into mine.
“You were saying?”
Gus blinks. “Okay, wow. That’s freaking awesome.”
“I’m glad you think so, because I’m going with you to the Gales. I’m tired of being fussed over and shuttled around like I’m some delicate little flower they have to shelter.”
“No one thinks you’re a flower, Vane. We’ve all smelled you after training.”
“Maybe so, but I’m not going to hide in the sand anymore either—and you can try and talk me out of it, but we both know that’s a waste of time. So let’s just skip that part and go get your dad.”
He still doesn’t look convinced, so I offer the one thing I know will win him over. “I’ll make you your own special wind spike. You won’t be able to command it, but I’ll keep track of it for you.”
I hurtle the spike into a cactus and the thorny plant explodes, showering us with slimy cactus goo.
“It didn’t unravel,” Gus mumbles, pointing at the wind spike lying in a puddle of greenish slime.
I call the spike back to me and hand it to him.
He stares at it for a few seconds before he slips it through the strap of his windslicer scabbard. I weave another spike for myself, wishing I’d worn a belt with my shorts. I guess this is why the Gales keep wanting me to wear a guardian uniform.
“Okay,” I say, ripping a hole in my pocket and slipping the spike through. “Armed and ready. Now let’s go find Feng.”
Gus nods and tangles himself in a group of nearby Easterlies. “This time you follow me.”
He leads me into the mountains, over a forest of spiky, gnarled Joshua trees.
I keep searching for a change in the winds or a storm in the distance. But everything stays bright and clear and normal.
Until Gus spots a smear of red on the ground.
He takes us down to an area I remember hiking in with my family. A garden of weird green, tubey plants that look kinda like what would happen if palm trees and cacti hooked up and had a bunch of bristly babies. I’m careful to avoid the white thorns that almost seem to reach for me as we make our way to the red-stained cactus.
“It’s his blood,” Gus says quietly as he reaches up and touches a broken stem. “This must be where he grabbed the piece he sent me.”
“But I don’t hear his echo in the air,” I remind him as he turns away to wipe his eyes. “So he’s still alive.”
Gus nods, sucking in a breath. “We should find the Gales. Os chased the Stormers southeast.”
I can hear the nearby drafts whispering the same thing—and the wind isn’t supposed to lie. And yet . . .
There’s one draft singing a completely different song.
I call the Westerly to my side, letting it fill the air with its warning about a hostage heading north into a valley of death. And when I listen to the other winds again I realize there’s no melody to their song. They whisper the words with no life or energy.
“I think the Stormers did something to the winds,” I say, double-checking the Westerly to make sure I’m not going crazy. “This Westerly says Feng was taken to Death Valley.”
Gus turns his palms northward, concentrating so hard that a deep line forms between his brows. “I can’t find his trace that way. Can you?”
I search the nearby air for the feel of Feng. The hint of cool energy around the bloody cactus has to be him, so I hold on to that sensation and reach further, concentrating on the Westerlies coming from the north until I find a draft carrying the same chilly rush.
I gasp when I realize it’s not the only trace the wind carries.
“What’s wrong?” Gus asks as I call the draft to me, but my head is spinning too fast to answer.