She Who Rides the Storm (The Gods-Touched Duology)

Lia looked over her shoulder at Chaol’s dry market and the running channels beyond before she made herself ride through the drum tower gates. It was hard to see anyway, Lia told herself, trying to squint at the booths and stands through her veil. But even after all these years, she couldn’t stop herself from feeling that this city was home.

Vivi nickered impatiently when Lia turned to look one more time, tugging on his reins until she put a gloved hand to his long, dappled neck. He twisted around to lip her skirt, his serrated teeth catching on the fabric. She laughed and gave him a doting scratch, unable to reach the spot he liked best behind the horn jutting from his forehead.

A pair of silenbahks trundled by on the other side of the channel, where the trade road had been built to span Chaol’s central islands to the shipping port lodged like a rock in the river mouth. Were creatures so large allowed on normal city streets these days? Lia still remembered her mother taking her up on the river walls to watch the beasts from afar, their armored tails, scaled shoulders, long necks, and even their tusks and trollish faces loaded with tea, spices, and fabrics from faraway provinces.

She could see clear to the Sand Cay walls even through her veil, but no matter how Lia twisted in her saddle, all she could see of the Water Cay was the bridge on the other side of the dry market, the rest of it hidden by the platform stages and hubbub of sellers yelling to passersby. Vivi began pawing the ground, raking the stone with his front hooves as Lia shut her eyes and breathed in deep, greedy for the saltwater scents of her childhood. Her veil sucked up against her nose and mouth, making her gag.

“Are you all right?” Lia tensed at Ewan’s voice behind her. “I’ve never known you to sleep in. We agreed to meet half an hour ago.” He strode up to stand next to Vivi, giving the side buckles on his leather breastplate an annoyed tug when she didn’t answer immediately, as if the effort of having to ask was more important than the answer. “The governor didn’t try to keep you, did he?”

“I’m fine. The governor wasn’t even home all morning. I promised to write Master Helan when we arrived, and I wanted to make sure the governor’s staff posted it before I came here.” Lia’s teacher had been so quiet when she got her orders to come. Pensive. Unhappy. But he always obeyed, just as she did.

Lia inhaled more carefully, wishing she could pull back the semisheer veil that dripped down her back and over her face, pooling on the saddle’s pommel in front of her. Even it couldn’t block out the familiar scent of Chaol’s fried bread. The smells, the wet drip of the air, the bend of the sunlight itself, made Lia feel as if she were only nine again. Climbing trees in her family’s private park, painting horrible portraits of her father, swinging from the knotted rope at their family beach with her mother, tying messy knots in Aria’s hair when no one was looking. How old would Aria be now? Lia’s brow furrowed as she tried to count.

“Who cares about your stuffy old master? You promised me that you’d look for him this morning. Did you see anything?”

She opened her eyes, lightly tapping Vivi’s side with her heel to turn him toward the stables. “Knox isn’t here, Ewan.”

There would be no ponds, no climbing, and absolutely no dreadful portraits during this visit to Chaol. Not even Lia’s annoying little sister could know she was there after so many years, though Aria probably could still use knots in her hair. But Devoted didn’t have families, so it would have to fall to the servants to keep Aria in check.

Lia’s veil pushed up against her face as Vivi darted toward the groom who waited at the stable door. The sheer fabric tickled her lips as if teasing her. I’m the only thing that will ever touch you, it seemed to sigh.

Unless Ewan gets his way.

She pulled Vivi’s snapping teeth back from the groom, blanking out the thought before it could take hold. Ewan lurched forward a second too late, as if he didn’t trust Lia to control her own mount, his hand groping for her reins and coming down uncomfortably close to her leg. Lia kicked Vivi forward, ignoring the way Ewan smoothed back his cropped hair so the shaved sides of his head would give a clear view of the oath scars that marked him a Devoted. Master Helan didn’t like him either—but then the Warlord had sent her away with Ewan, so far away from her teacher.…

“Knox has to be here.” Even Ewan’s voice was invasive and coarse as he followed her to the row of stalls specially made for auroshes. “You can’t just lose a Devoted—”

“No. You shouldn’t have been able to.” Lia dismounted, grateful for her extra-wide skirts. At least she hadn’t been forced to ride sidesaddle after giving up her armor. Vivi nipped at her as she shut the stall’s barred door, her auroshe’s slitted nostrils flaring as he watched her lock it. Not that it would help him. Opposable thumbs were required to operate the mechanism.

She strode out of the stable and toward the main building, catching hints of the aurafire that littered the streets outside the drum tower gates, their white glow made a dull sort of gray by her spiriter veil. Those auras would have been out of range for a normal Devoted. Lia was not normal.

The sparks of energy clear to the Sand Cay walls flared in Lia’s head. Not just ahead, but behind her and to the left and right, the whole string of islands alight with auras. Lia could look close too, focus on one of those little flares and follow it to the world’s end if she liked. Each aura was unique and different, easy to track for a spiriter like her. But no matter how much Ewan complained, ordered, or whined, Knox’s familiar, gold-flecked aura was nowhere to be found in Chaol.

“You have to look again.” Ewan followed too close behind her, his height and bulk beneath the leather armor disconcerting now that Lia wasn’t atop Vivi. She found herself reaching for a sword that she was no longer allowed, like a security blanket that had been taken away.

“I don’t have to do anything. And looking again wouldn’t change the fact that he’s not here.”

“That’s not good enough, Lia Seystone. You came here to help me.”

“No, you came here to help me.” Lia turned into the drum tower’s entrance, carved with Calsta’s brushes, waving for the two Roosters on guard at the doors to stay in place. The smells and familiar streets suddenly felt bone empty. She’d wanted to find Knox. Not finding his familiar flecks of gold had felt like missing a stair. No, like falling down an entire flight, and she was still falling. If her Devoted brother’s aura wasn’t here, then he wasn’t anywhere.

Devoted looked like anyone else once they were dead.

It hurt to say out loud, but Lia did it for herself just as much as she did it to make Ewan leave her alone. “He’s gone to the Sky Painter.”

“That’s not possible.” Ewan’s teeth ground together. “I would have found his body.”

Lia gathered a handful of her skirts to keep from tripping over them as she crossed the polished marble floor, pretending she didn’t notice when a maid stumbled out of her way. One day Knox had been scheming with her over breakfast about how to sneak bowel softeners into Master Tracy’s tea, and then the next he’d been gone, a trail of blood splattered in his wake. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. They’d been separated long before that, but she’d still thought about him as if he were behind her, like he had been since they first entered the seclusion. Watching her back.

Why hadn’t he told her about his plan to leave? Why had he left at all? Between the two of them, it hadn’t been Knox who had dreamed of his life before Calsta.

Ewan crowded in behind Lia as she strode up the stairs, swearing when he tripped over her long skirts. “If we took you to the wall, maybe your view would be clearer—”

“You are wasting my time.” She kept her composure, tugging her skirts out from under his boots with a gloved hand, wishing for her armor. Spiriters weren’t supposed to wear it. They were above such things. “If I don’t read everyone before the Warlord gets here, she could be in danger. The governor sent over the first batch of officials, and the longer they wait, the more difficult they’ll be.”

Officials. Saying it felt like biting her own tongue. Meeting with these men and women shouldn’t matter. By her oaths, it couldn’t, no matter who might be among them. Still, Lia’s chest panged.

Calsta did not share her power with Devoted for nothing. It was an exchange. Lia touched her gloved hand to the side of her head through her veil where the oath marks had been burned into her, each leaving shiny bald patches under her hair. The first two oaths granted Devoted aurasight, to go faster, see better, become stronger. The third let them bend their bodies to their will, to push against the laws of nature, like gravity, mass, velocity. But for each power and with each oath, Calsta took something. First, it was strong-tasting and -smelling foods. Alcohol of any kind. Second had been Lia’s possessions—she could own simple things but couldn’t spend her time trying to get more. Third, Calsta had taken everyone Lia loved and any she might love in the future. Anyone who could possibly divide her loyalty from the goddess. Or the Warlord, who represented her.

Lia put a hand to her chest, her fingers clenched as she tried to dismiss the unhappiness that welled up in her heart at the thought. Here she was in her own home city, her family so close. She hadn’t spoken to them since the day she made her third oath.

What office would her father hold now? Was he high enough to be interviewed by Devoted searching for plots against the Warlord?

“You can read all the officials during dinner tonight.” Ewan’s voice elbowed into her thoughts. He ran a hand along the wall as they climbed, and Lia couldn’t help the spark of jealousy at the way he casually touched the stone. The whole world felt like lukewarm soup under her veil and gloves, but the risk of touching someone by accident was too great to do without them. “It’s not like either of us will be able to eat. Don’t plotting and murder stand out from people’s thoughts?” His voice changed a degree, warming. “Making officials wait now just means they’ll be all the more… intrigued when they meet you later. Anticipation, and all that.”

Lia walked a step faster for an answer. She could feel his eyes on her back, and, if only in this isolated moment, she was grateful for her coverings.

She could see what he was thinking when he looked at her.

There were few who could make the three oaths Calsta required of Devoted. No food, no possessions, no relationships. Lia had two scars more than that, though, one of only six in the entire Commonwealth who did. It had been the gloves first. She couldn’t touch anyone, but she could track anyone within a few miles. The veil had come next—her oath said she couldn’t look directly at any person, but Calsta let her see into their thoughts. If Lia trained even more, she’d be able to read people’s hearts, to the root of what they wanted, who they were. Master Helan had been so worried about letting her come on this trip, especially since Ewan was coming with her. It was odd to feel his worry when she’d never actually seen his face under his veil.

Perhaps as odd as seeing her own face in Ewan’s mind—or a version of it, at least. He’d gotten her blue eyes and red hair right, but he’d blanked out her freckles, added pronounced curves where Lia had none, and given her a sultry pout as if he’d forgotten what she looked like in the two years since she’d taken on the veil. Maybe Ewan had never seen her clearly before, only felt her sword at his throat in their years of training together.

“Let’s skip the banquet and really let them stew. We could eat together, just the two of us.” Ewan stopped, letting her get ahead a few steps. “It would be good for us to talk. Alone. Don’t you think?”

Lia’s refusal choked in her throat when a miniature version of Ewan popped up in his mind and sat down next to the little version of her. The thought-Ewan pushed up against miniature Lia, his hands snaking around her. Then he tore off her veil—

Jerking her attention back to the stairs, Lia took the last three in one jump. Her legs burned to go faster, but she forced herself to walk to the end of the hall, her veil plastering against her face. Did Ewan know how much she could see?

There were strict rules about what it meant to give up anyone who might distract you from the goddess. No physical relationships were allowed at all, no matter how fleeting. None.

Except in very specific situations.

How Ewan’s aura was still Devoted gold with such images crowding his mind, Lia couldn’t fathom. There was a difference between thinking and doing, she supposed, but seeing the thought version of herself in his control with no way to intercede made the space between the two seem very narrow.

She nodded to the Rooster who stood guard at the room set aside for interviews, the shadow in her chest growing darker when Ewan streaked ahead of her, blocking her way into the room.

“Lia, please.” He took a step toward her, almost touching her veil where it fell to her toes. He lowered his voice, and his words oozed like cooking fat. “You can’t fight me on this. You don’t want to, do you? We’re supposed to be partners.”

Lia gathered her veil around her like the armor she missed, ignoring the way the Rooster’s ears perked, the girl’s eyes widening as if she wished she had heard the beginning of this disagreement. “It’s my choice in the end, Ewan.”

“You know it’s what the Warlord wants.”

She pushed past him into the room. Ewan lurched out of the way, sensible enough not to risk letting any part of him touch her, but she could feel the way it made him seethe. Having to step back, not able to flash his oath scars and expect her to bow to his will as most people would.

But there wasn’t much Lia could say. Ewan was right. More Devoted grew ill every day, wasting sickness thinning out their ranks. Lia was the only spiriter under the age of fifty, and the likelihood of finding others wasn’t high unless the Warlord could produce more from within the Devoted’s own ranks. It still felt like the last thing Calsta could take from her, as if Lia should be promised some sort of ultimate power for having to make such a sacrifice.

Instead, it probably meant more walls around her. More choices revoked, if that were possible. Lia hadn’t understood what it meant when Devoted had come to cart her away, hadn’t understood everything she’d have to give up—she’d been only eleven.

Lia could barely focus on Ewan, her eyes blurry behind her veil. The Warlord had said Lia could choose the person she was paired with, just the way history books said old Devoted did. But then the Warlord had sent Ewan with her to Chaol, his mind full of the oaths he looked forward to breaking as if she’d already given him leave. “Please. Go.”

He smirked. And went.

Lia reached out to the Rooster standing at attention by the door as if the girl could somehow save her, balance her, hold her up like a crutch. Lia Seystone needing a crutch? She’d been the terror of the training yards, the name Basists whispered in the shadows of nightmares. Calsta had taken her family from her, and so Lia had filled the space with forms, swords, and the hunt. Now all she had was a veil.

Lia’s fists balled in front of her as the Rooster moved out of reach, just the way Ewan had when she’d almost touched him.

Composing herself, Lia let her hands fall to her sides. “Give me a moment. I’ll call for you when I’m ready.” She walked into the little office, closed the door behind her, and leaned against it, shutting her eyes. To do her job, she couldn’t let herself be muddied by Ewan’s thoughts or anyone else’s. Not even her own. And so she took a deep breath and let go.

The thought of Knox in a shallow grave. Gone.

The fact that Ewan was a grease fire of an excuse for a human and that the Warlord seemed to be spinning a web that bound them together. Gone.

The familiar smells of Chaol. The faces of her father, her mother. Little Aria with her red curls.

Gone.

This was who she was now. Lia’s oaths were made, scarred into her whether or not she’d had a choice in making them. Calsta didn’t let her devotees just walk away. Knox was evidence enough of that.

Lia let her eyes drift back open, taking in one last deep breath to calm herself. Once again her veil sucked into her mouth. She tore the thing from her head, threw it on the ground, and stepped on it as she squeezed past the screen the governor had set up in the back corner of the room so she’d be able to interview his officials in comfort.

She sat at the desk hidden behind the screen. Took one last moment to calm her aching insides, because there wasn’t room for regret in any Devoted. No room for complaints. Wishes. Dreams. The moment the masters had realized Lia could wear the veil, her future had been set.

This was her life. So Lia found her voice. “Send in the magistrate, please.”