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

You can’t keep me in here forever!” Mateo called through his bedroom door, anger a pulse inside him. It had been more than a whole day since he watched Lia tear down the road on his father’s horse. Outside his bedroom window, the road snaked toward Chaol, a ghost of Ewan chasing after her playing at the edges of Mateo’s mind every time he looked. He paced to the door and back again, his eyes heavy from a night of no sleep.

He’d tried to take a horse, almost managed to get into the saddle before the hostler had dragged him off. And then he’d run to the gate only to have one of the maids tackle him to the ground. Master Montanne wants you to stay here. It’s not safe. We’re so sorry.

Not as sorry as they were going to be once he got out of his room. Whenever that would be. Tual hadn’t come home that night or at all during the day, so the dogs were still on guard.

Mateo shoved all his blankets on the floor, then upset his bookcase, glorying in the noise of leather and vellum hitting the boards. A few of his own sketches landed on top of the pile, the rendition he’d done during the night of Patenga and the man with the shield staring up at him. He sighed, wondering who the man could possibly be, before gathering the drawings up and placing them carefully on his bed.

By the time Mateo heard hoofbeats in the courtyard, the light had begun to fade. He rushed to the window, hoping for Lia but finding Tual somehow on the horse Lia had taken, two hostlers riding the ones from the dig right behind him.

“Sorry, sir.” The maid cracked the door open. “We didn’t want to lock you in, but your father said—”

Mateo pushed his way through the door and past her. “I’ll take it up with him!” His head pounded, his knees wobbling as he ran down the stairs and out through the entryway, making for the stable. His father’s hat was lying on the cobblestones outside the stable door, the wind twitching it this way and that.

Inside the stable, the two hostlers from the dig were dismounting. Tual was already on the ground, headed for the courtyard, one hand on his naked head. “Mateo? What’s wrong?”

“Where’s Lia? You must have seen her, otherwise you couldn’t have…” Mateo’s fingers shook as he pointed toward his father’s horse.

“I found poor Lucky tied up just past the southern waterway in the Sand Cay.” He nodded to the hostlers as they walked out. “Thanks for your help. Get some food from the kitchen before you walk back.” He turned to Mateo. “I take it your outing to the dig didn’t go well? Or went…” He eyed the two horses Mateo and Lia had abandoned at the excavation compound. “Extremely well?”

Mateo sagged against the wall. “Ewan must have found her. Where in Calsta’s name were you? I tried to go after Lia, but the blasted help locked me in my room.” He gripped the stable’s leaf-carved doorframe, suddenly feeling unsteady. Panic stole oxygen away from his lungs, the edges of his vision going dark. Trine and holl, his brain provided as he clung to the sight of the leaves etched into the doorframe. A tear rolled down Mateo’s cheek when a trickle of oxygen finally pushed past the block in his chest. Medicinal plants. Signs of the horse handler god… what’s his name? Used to treat mange.

How do I know that? A flicker of rage burned through him. Who cares about the horse handler god?

Hands gripped his shoulders, his father holding him up. “Mateo, you’re all right. I’m here.”

Mateo finally managed to sip down one inadequate breath. Then another that was a little deeper. He sagged against the doorframe, a cold sweat breaking out across his forehead. What was happening? He hadn’t been to the dig today. He hadn’t been doing anything at all.

It didn’t matter. He stumbled toward Bella. The hostler who was in the middle of pulling off her saddle eyed him warily. “Put it back on,” he shouted. “I have to go.”

“Mateo.” Tual’s hand grabbed his shoulder, spinning him around. “I don’t mean to imply you aren’t a fabulous communicator, son, but I’m struggling right now. What is going on?”

“Ewan chased Lia from the dig. She took Lucky into Chaol, and if you just found Lucky wandering around, that means Ewan’s got Lia and she’s locked up somewhere.” Mateo’s head seemed to burn. Lia had been so scared back at the dig.… “And you had the maid lock me in my room. What is wrong with you? Hilaria made me eat cold soup.”

Tual’s shoulders relaxed, and he let go of Mateo, stepping back to wipe a hand across his face. “I… may have asked some of the help to keep an eye on you, what with the number of attacks you’ve been having.” He took a deep breath, leaning back against the stall and looking up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry. I was worried about you.”

“Where were you? You just were going to let them keep me locked up for days at a time?” An ugly realization burst in Mateo’s chest as he went to Bella, pushing the hostler out of the way to buckle the saddle. “Were you interviewing new assistants for after I’m dead?”

Tual went still. “You’ve been reading my papers. And horribly misinterpreting them.”

“Is that where you were? Because now all our plans are done. Van probably already got into the burial chamber, Lia is gone—”

Moving quickly, Tual grabbed hold of Mateo, wrapping his arms tight around him. Mateo sagged against him, anger spilling a gush of hot tears down his cheek. “Breathe, son. Calm. You have to stay calm.”

Mateo buried his face in his father’s shoulder. He’d tried to help Lia, and he’d failed. She was stuck again, just the way he was.

“I was in town this morning, and if the Devoted had caught their spiriter, I would have heard about it,” Tual murmured. “I’m sure Lia is just fine. Probably sitting in her room at the valas’s compound, coming up with new ways to tie that scarf of hers. You say you located the burial chamber?”

Mateo’s voice was muffled against his father’s coat. “Yes.”

“Good, that is good. Van has needed your help every step of the way so far, so the likelihood of him being able to get in without you now seems laughable, don’t you think? He wouldn’t have threatened you if he didn’t need you.”

“I guess.” But Mateo couldn’t believe it. He could feel the world disintegrating around him.

“Unfortunately, there is another problem we need to address.”

“What now?”

“Apparently, the governor has been intercepting our mail and didn’t care to pass along the fact that the Warlord is arriving ahead of schedule. This evening, to be exact.”

Mateo pushed away from his father, another gasp racking his lungs as he stalked over to Bella and shoved a foot into her saddle’s stirrup.

“What are you doing?” Tual’s voice pounded at his eardrums.

“I have to know if Lia is okay.” Mateo pulled himself unsteadily into the saddle, his sight going double for a second.

“But what about—”

“And if she is all right, I have to warn her. The Warlord isn’t drained the way Ewan is. She’ll see Lia’s aura.” He blinked away the double vision and gave Bella a kick.

Tual grabbed Bella’s reins, holding Mateo in place. “Aren’t you on the edge of another episode? It isn’t safe for you to be out alone. Why do you think I sicced the help on you in the first place? Wait a minute, I’ll saddle Lucky.”

“You can’t come. She won’t listen to you. She already thinks…”

Tual leaned against Bella’s withers, his mouth suspiciously tight. “What? That I’m an old man who will see her married or see her dead? What’s changed here, Mateo? A few days ago you would have been dancing in the courtyard if you heard the Warlord was about to surprise Lia with a new set of shackles.”

“Nothing has changed.” Mateo stared at Bella’s ears as they flicked back and forth, his placid horse cagey with all the noise. “Do I have to want to marry her in order to try to prevent something terrible happening to her?” He gave Bella another kick, dislodging his father as she headed toward the wide door.

Tual followed him into the courtyard, triumph rolling off him in droves. “You must be all right, or you’d be angrier and less cheeky.”

“You haven’t won,” Mateo called over his shoulder. He gave Bella a sharper kick, starting her into a run.

“It’s not me who’s winning.” He could hear the grin in his father’s voice. “Go to your lady love! Fly like the wind!”

There wasn’t time to swear at him. Mateo had never been able to force the world to hand over his due—what any person was due. A fair chance at life, at love, at learning, at growing old. But if the gods wanted to hand the same fate to Lia, at least he could do something about it.

Lia checked the whole west wing before heading toward her mother’s room. Without her aurasight, she had to do it with her own eyes, like a child sneaking tamarind paste from the larder. Father was downstairs with guests from the Ink Cay, along with most of the servants, and Aria, to the best of Lia’s knowledge, was in the kitchen covertly smearing chili paste onto the new trade advisor’s currant buns.

Tonight they were all going to escape.

First, Lia had to take care of Mother, figure out how to get her into the carriage without hurting her. Anwei had given Lia some herbs for Father—they’d go into his evening malt, and Aria would be so intrigued by a plan that involved drugging Father and stashing him in a carriage that getting her to come along would be easier than stealing a first-year Devoted’s sword.

If only Father had listened to Lia, they’d already be gone. Over the border. Maybe fathers wanted their children to believe they had everything in hand. Maybe he even believed it himself, as if the gods owed him a happy and prosperous life.

Prosperity and happiness didn’t appear like flowers in spring, though. They weren’t inevitable. Lia had decided that happiness was something hunted in the night, something you subdued with a sword in hand, then locked up inside your chest before it could fly away. The Warlord had taken her life. Ewan had tried to take her body. He had taken her only friend left—Vivi. Hunting for your own happiness meant pinching and prying, running, killing if that’s what it took, and then you treasured whatever you found, even if it wasn’t everything you’d hoped for.

You had to take what you wanted for yourself and the people you loved because no one else was going to hand it to you. And Lia meant to take it now.

Stopping in front of her mother’s door, Lia reached for the latch.

“What are you doing up here?”

Lia jumped at her sister’s voice, finding Aria licking her honey-covered fingers down the hall. “You are getting very good at sneaking.” Lia kept her voice calm.

“Dad said you can’t visit her yet.” Aria shrugged, sucking on one last finger before stepping up next to Lia. “But I think that’s stupid. She’s hardly ever awake anyway.” She pulled the latch open.

Lia followed Aria into the room, her heart pounding. Finally she’d get to see Mother. She put a hand to her scarf, meaning to pull it aside—she didn’t want her mother to see her for the first time as a masked stranger—but then she let her hand fall away. It still felt too dangerous, exposing her face, her skin. Mateo had been right when he’d said she was hiding. The scarf made her feel as if she somehow still had Calsta on her side of the battle, and the fight wouldn’t be done until she was over the border.

Aria walked to the bed and slipped through the curtains, just as Lia remembered doing so many times herself as a child. Jumping on the bed to wake her parents, only to have her mother grab her around the middle, pull her under the blankets, and pretend to fall back asleep. The curtains were drawn against the night now, keeping everything out instead of welcoming everyone in as they used to.

Lia reached to open the curtain, but her sister called a warning before she could. “The light bothers her! Leave them closed.”

Swallowing hard, Lia slipped between the curtains into the bed’s gloom. An awful smell of sick hit Lia’s nose, panic welling up inside her at the sight of the frail form lying under the blankets. Mother’s eyes were closed, her freckled cheeks waxy and pale, almost translucent, as if her body had already been peeled away to leave nothing but a ghost. Her hands lay limp at her sides, her body slanted toward Aria’s small form, huddled next to her.

Lia reached out to brush back strawlike coppery strands of hair from her mother’s face, the shiny curls Lia remembered so well a thing long dead. “You said she doesn’t wake often?”

Aria shook her head. “Started a few months ago with her feeling poorly. Took to her bed within a week. After that…” Lia leaned forward to take her sister’s hand, then groped to find her mother’s. Her long, lovely fingers were cold and shriveled.

“And nothing has helped?”

“Dad brought healer after healer. Ruined a few of them, he was so angry when they couldn’t help. But this last week, since the aukincer man came, she started waking up again. She actually ate a whole piece of toast yesterday, Lia.” Aria looked up hopefully. “Tual can make her better, can’t he? He said he might be able to.”

“I don’t know.” Lia’s heart seemed to be beating in her ears, blood pounding to all the wrong places in her body. The aukincer had been able to do what healers had not, but Anwei and Knox had both seemed confident that Beildan medicine would be enough for her. Maybe even enough to cure her. When Lia bent to kiss her mother’s freckled cheek, tears pricked in her eyes at the feel of her mother’s burning skin. Mother breathed in, one tiny inhale that brought a tinge of pink to her cheeks and punched a hole in Lia’s gut because she hadn’t realized her mother hadn’t been breathing. There was no way Anwei’s medicine would be enough, not if Father had already scoured the whole city for help.

If Lia tried to move her mother, it would be her fault if she died.

If Lia stayed, it was her own life that would be forfeited. Was there no way to win?

“What would you do?” she whispered against her mother’s hair.

The door clicked open. Aria scrambled to the curtains and slid out, standing before the opening. “Daddy!”

Lia’s stomach clenched. She could hide or face it, and Lia didn’t like all the hiding she’d been doing. She pushed the curtains aside. Her father’s eyebrows rose, his forehead knotting as he took her in, sitting next to her mother on the bed.

“You… you disobeyed,” he stuttered.

“Of course I disobeyed.” Lia kept her voice as calm as she could manage. “I don’t belong to you. I wanted to see her.”

Her father blinked, then looked down, slumping into the chair by the bedside. He put his face in his hands.

“Close the curtains. The light bothers her,” he whispered.

Lia couldn’t move for a second, waiting for the fight she was sure would come. But when it didn’t, she slid to the edge of the bed and closed the curtains.

“I want to survive, Lia. I want to live.” The words came out muffled between his fingers. “I want our family to be all right, for Aria to grow past twelve.”

Aria’s eyes widened, and Lia wished she could stop her father from scaring her. But she couldn’t. Couldn’t stop him from trying to enact any of the stupid plans he’d come up with, forcing her to save the family behind his back. “I want all those things too.”

“So why are you—”

“Because I won’t be your bargaining chip!” The words exploded out of her, Aria stumbling back. “You can’t keep me from Mother, and you can’t hand me off like a cream puff in exchange for becoming governor of Chaol. I am not a toy, not a trophy. I’m a person, and I get a choice.”

He looked up at her, tears in his eyes. The silence was electric, burning like a fire in Lia’s lungs because it didn’t matter what he said; she’d take her family to safety. But it also did matter what he said, because even if he had been acting like a master, he was her father. She loved him.

A tear spilled down her father’s cheek. “I have missed you every moment since sending you away.”

Lia’s insides wanted to melt, tears coursing down her own cheeks. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt, and I think if we just leave—”

“You were always so passionate. So free. Full of love and full of energy. Ready to take over the world.” He buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking. “I want you to be happy, Little Spot. I don’t want to make you do anything. I don’t want you to be unhappy or stuck under a veil. Or behind that scarf. I don’t want… any of it.”

Lia reached inside the curtains, searching until she found her mother’s hand to hold. Her skin felt too soft, as if it would melt away.

“I just thought if we could stay, your mother might have a chance. After I saw how much better she was with the aukincer’s help, I saw this future for us here. One where she recovered, I kept my position, you stayed here with us and didn’t have to go back, and Aria got to kick every guard from here to the governor’s house in the kneecaps.…” Lia’s father swallowed, looking up at her. “But your happiness matters too. Reality matters too.” He gestured to the bed, hardly able to look at the blue curtains, tears still streaming down his face. “Even with the aukincer’s help, she might never recover. And staying here on the charity of a man who started by blackmailing us seems risky at best. We’d all benefit for a while, but who knows for how long? And you’d suffer the whole time. Again.” He swallowed once more, wiping away his tears. “The first question I should have asked was what you want. So I’ll ask now. What do you want to do, Little Spot?”

Lia looked down at her hand in her mother’s, the frail, cold fingers interlaced with hers. She thought of Tual, his fluffy exterior barely concealing a blade underneath. Mateo, who was prickly on the outside but all fluff at his center. Knox and Anwei, who were leaving that very night. Her mother’s awful condition.

Anwei had said she could help. So Lia took a deep breath and looked at her father. “I have a safe way out of here for all of us. With people I trust.”

Her father smiled. “Then I trust you. We’ll do what you say.” He opened his arms, beckoning her to come.

Inside Lia’s chest, a knot untangled. A memory of that golden glow she’d seen in her father’s thoughts when he’d first walked into her interview room filled her to the brim. It wasn’t just for her. It was for their whole family. And after so many years of not being touched, she stepped into her father’s embrace and felt safe. Not because he was protecting her, but because they were going to protect each other.

The door slammed open, a servant’s furious blustering filling the air. “You can’t go in there, sir, I’m sorry, but—”

Lia’s father pulled away from her, and she jumped behind the curtains. “What in Calsta’s name—”

“Lia! I know you’re in here.” Mateo’s voice cut through her father’s growl. He pushed past the servant blocking the door and stumbled into the bed, accidentally parting the curtains and exposing her. Breaths wheezed out of him, his cheeks an unhealthy red. “She’s coming. She’s going to be here tonight. She might already be in Chaol.”

Lia’s mother let out an awful groan, her eyelids fluttering in the sudden light. Lia snatched the curtains shut. Of all the nights for Mateo to barge into her home. Did he know she was planning to leave?

“Leave at this moment,” her father yelled.

“You have to come with me, Lia.” Mateo put his hand out but stopped, as if he meant to grab her arm but knew better. “I don’t know if she brought any spiriters, but it’s your only chance—”

Lia straightened. “What do you mean?”

“The Warlord is going to arrive here tonight. The cliff house is far enough from the road that she won’t see your aura. You have to come.”

Tonight. The Warlord. All the plans with Knox and Lia fell away. If the Warlord brought Master Helan, it was over.

The moment Master Helan knew she was missing, he’d close his eyes and send out his mind to find her. Latch on to her. Track her across the world if the Warlord asked him to.

Ignoring her father’s blustering, Lia slid through a crack in the curtains and bent to kiss her mother’s cheek. Pulling back, she grasped Aria’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “I’ve got to go. Get Mother and Father into a carriage to Gretis. A boy with a short ponytail and a Beildan will be there waiting for you.” She looked deep into Aria’s eyes, unable to let her fingers release her sister. “I’ll meet you there.”

Lia ran from the room, hating the rest of that sentence. I’ll meet you if I can. If it’s safe. Knox would take care of her family if it wasn’t. She trusted him.

Mateo lurched down the corridor after her, swearing when they got to the stairs. Lia could hardly hear through the film of panic coating her every thought until she realized he wasn’t close behind her, Mateo hardly even able to walk.

Was he having an episode?

Lia ran back to him, shoved her shoulder under his arm, and supported him down the stairs. Through the entryway, down the front steps, past the fountain to where Bella was waiting. Lia helped Mateo into the saddle, then climbed up in front of him, and they were off.

“I saw Ewan follow you into town. I tried to come after you, but…” Mateo’s heart was fluttering hard, but not hard enough, like a butterfly’s wings in a gale, against her back. “I couldn’t leave, and all day I was worried he’d caught you.”

“No.” Lia thought of Anwei’s arms around her, tears pricking in her eyes. “He didn’t catch me. Why did you come here? You’re about to fall off Bella!”

“I couldn’t let the Warlord find you.”

She started to turn but then forced herself to concentrate on the gate, the road. “Just hold on.”

He didn’t speak until they were clear of the gate, the question hanging in the air over their heads. “You don’t like that I came?”

Lia shook her head, tears burning in her eyes. There wasn’t anything to like or not like. She didn’t understand.

Finally, once they were past the outer market and the road was open, stars overhead, Mateo spoke again, his voice so quiet, she wondered if he was ashamed. “Would you rather have not known? Or was it because I’m the one telling you?”

“I’m glad you came, Mateo, but if she finds us together, you’re the one who’s going to be hung. Maybe your father could keep Ewan from coming after me at the cliff house, but the Warlord herself? Both your heads will end up on spikes if she catches us. I’m not your problem.”

“You don’t deserve the life she’d give you. Not any more than I deserve to die.”

“This wasn’t supposed to happen. I was supposed to have more time!” Lia’s whole body ached. Why did the Warlord have to come today?

And what was Mateo playing at in helping her? He was even holding himself up in the stirrups, gripping the sides of the saddle behind him instead of grabbing her. He knew she didn’t like being touched.

He knew and cared enough to do something about it. He’d stood up to Ewan even with a sword pressed to his throat. He’d tried to come after her to make sure Ewan didn’t find her. He’d risked being named a traitor tonight.… Lia bit her lip, feeling bad about the way she’d been thinking of him while she was talking to her father. Mateo wasn’t fluff. You don’t deserve the life she’d give you. Not any more than I deserve to die.

She didn’t know what he was, but Mateo didn’t adhere to rules as she understood them.

When she finally spoke again, Lia’s voice cracked. “You’re not going to die, Mateo. You’re going to find whatever it is you’re looking for in the tomb. Your father loves you too much to let you die.”

“If only he’d stop trying to arrange the rest of my life so I wish I were already dead.”

Lia laughed, the sound echoing hopelessly up into the air. There was no end to her problems. She was riding out to stay in the aukincer’s home, right in the spider’s trap. Her way out of the city was leaving that very night, and her mother was half-dead, with Tual perhaps the only healer capable of saving her. “Don’t die on my account. Of everything that has happened this week, I mind you the least. Strangely, you’re a bright spot in a sea of mud.”

“The bar must be very low—” His voice choked. “For this… to…” Mateo’s arms seemed to slacken, and his body bobbed behind her in the saddle. Lia pulled Bella to a stop, barely managing to catch Mateo before he fell off the horse.