She Who Rides the Storm (The Gods-Touched Duology)
She Who Rides the Storm: Chapter 26

Lia walked through the dry market as quickly as she dared. Past heaps of crusty fish and jeweled craycrabs and little furred mockturtles, their sea coats slippery with salt. When she got to the bridge, she could still feel Knox there behind her, a shadow at the corner of her vision that slipped away when she turned to look. It wasn’t until she’d gotten to the guard’s blind spot on the wall around her father’s house that he finally strolled into view.

Lia put her back to the wall. Her eyes wanted to slide off him, but she held them firm. Knox didn’t attack, keeping his distance as he looked her over, a rangy, scrappy version of her friend who’d left her with more questions than breath to say them. His hair had grown out to make a blunt ponytail at the nape of his neck, his cheekbones had hollowed, and his skin was a milk tea color that said he’d been spending less time outside.

“You come for me now?” she whispered. “You should have done it a year ago.”

“You left me first.” He shook his head, as if he wanted to pull the words back. “That’s not what I meant. I’m not here for you. I saw Vivi at the governor’s house and heard you were missing, and I was worried.… Why are you here?”

Lia pressed her lips together tight, then turned to face the wall and began to climb. “Come inside.”

Why was she here? That question was much better than what Lia had been expecting—no questions and a knife in her back. Knox had left without so much as a goodbye… but he was right. She had gone first, though it hadn’t been her choice. Lia clenched her eyes shut for a moment, then resumed climbing with a violent burst, not wanting to remember the day she’d left Knox—not that he’d ever needed her as much as she’d needed him.

She’d been sitting outside Vivi’s stall one morning, feeding him bits of dried meat, when Knox had come to tell her Master Pel wanted to see both of them. It had been a year or more since she’d made the third oath, Lia’s family a scab that still bled when she prodded at it, though being allowed out into the Commonwealth to hunt Basists and scare province officials helped.

She still remembered the exact way Knox had wrinkled his nose as she put the rest of Vivi’s treats on her palm and held them up over her head for the auroshe, Vivi’s long teeth catching in her curls as he gobbled the meat.

They walked together to the masters’ hall. Master Pel was waiting for them with a lumpy armful of stained fabric. White that had long gone gray.

“Weapons and leathers off.” She waited patiently as Knox and Lia stripped off their swords and outer armor, Lia’s fingers moving slowly, as if she could stave off what she knew would come next.

Knox put a hand on her shoulder when Master Pel turned away to put their swords under her desk. “It’s just the spiriter test, Lia. We’ll have our next assignment before you know it.”

He’d always been so solemn. Pious. Ready to do his part in the fight against the nameless god. But even he shuddered as Master Pel settled the cloth over his head and handed him a pair of gloves.

The veil felt like a weight on Lia’s head and shoulders, blocking out light, breath, the last bits of human contact she still had inside the seclusion.

“This week will be one of meditation and stillness,” Master Pel said. “Give yourself to Calsta, tell her you are sacrificing your connection to others that comes from direct eye contact and touch. Few can learn to track, and Calsta rewards even fewer beyond that with the capacity to read thoughts. Do not aspire. Be humble. Look inward. Allow the hostlers to care for your auroshes. There will be no training, no assignments. Your meals will be brought to your rooms. Take this opportunity to rededicate yourself to the oaths you’ve already made to the Sky Painter. Master Helan will be observing you from his room for signs of capacity.”

Lia shuddered at the idea of the old spiriter who had brought her to the seclusion when she was a girl. He’d frightened her then just as he did at the beginning, sitting up in his tower, watching her, reading her thoughts from under his thick veil. Knox squeezed her hand once through their gloves before they parted.

“See you in a week.” Lia said it as if it were a truth. A conclusion already made. A future that she could count on in a life of futures being chosen for her one after another. “It’ll be over soon.”

The first day sequestered in her room was boring. With no Vivi to brush, no sword to sharpen, and no armor to oil, Lia felt as if she were disappearing. As if she’d become nothing but a loose conglomeration of annoyance and bitterness covered by a bit of tatty cloth. She pushed her mind out past the confines of her room, wondering what Knox was doing. Promises to Calsta were not said, not even one.

When she found Knox in the male barracks with her mind, she amused herself by watching his aura sit there, as bored as she was. Itching for his sword.

The last thought, the one about the sword, seemed to stand up over his head, dancing through his aura like a wicked little imp, much deeper inside him than she would have expected. External and yet a part of him. Then she saw his boredom turn to thoughts of lunch. She felt him make a decision. The boy who never, ever broke the rules left his room, went to the eating hall, filled a tray with food, and started in her direction.

By the time he got to her room, Lia had torn off the veil and gloves and curled herself up in the corner. When Knox saw her, he dropped the tray and pulled off his own veil.

“Lia?” He was scared too.

Master Helan came in right behind him, ghostly and mysterious under the crisp white folds of his veil. As the man held out his gloved hand to her, Lia could feel everything about her that mattered draining away. Playing with Vivi. Sparring with Knox. Conditioning her armor and mending the padding, weeks on the saddle. Fighting, sweating, pushing herself until she couldn’t remember anything but what it felt like for her muscles to burn.

There was no such thing as family, homesickness, or sadness when you were on fire.

Now, when she got to the top of her family compound’s wall, it was almost a shock to place the Knox who was standing with his arms crossed as he watched her, no intention of following, next to the memory of him standing in her doorway, his veil on the ground and tears on his cheeks. His openness, his desire to live a simple life doing what he was told, seemed to have vanished into something much more complicated.

“I’m not working with the Devoted. I want you to show me how to hide from them too,” she called. “Come inside before someone sees you.”

The bite of caution didn’t leave him. He looked down the street, then back up at her, then very slowly began to climb. Once they were safe on the other side of the wall, Lia tried to replace the right thing to say as she watched for the opening between guards. “What…” There weren’t words to express what was inside her. “Where have you been for the last year? Why did you leave?”

Knox shifted restlessly, all his muscles tense. “Who else is here other than Ewan?”

It looked like the old rivalry between him and Ewan was still in full force despite how trivial it seemed now. Perhaps it didn’t feel trivial on the wrong side of a manhunt. “Six… I mean five Roosters.” A twinge of nausea bubbled up inside Lia at the thought. She watched her friend’s face, anger and worry an odd mix across his features. “You didn’t tell me you were going to go,” she said. “I would have come with you.”

“Why are you here, Lia?” He whispered it. “Please tell me this is a coincidence.”

“You followed me. I’m the one who didn’t turn you in when you blew up on the wall.”

“You saw that?”

“And made sure no one else did.”

“How did you pull that off?” A slight smile. “Did you put sugar in Ewan’s tea?”

“No.” Lia swiped at her cheek, wishing tears didn’t sting. “Your aura wasn’t here when we first got to Chaol and then it was. Show me how to hide like you, and we can leave together before the Warlord comes.” The simple plan tasted like a dream. A leftover of her past life. But she was just like Knox: a much more complicated version of what she’d been before. Hiding would be only one step of many with Tual breathing down her neck.

“I can’t.”

“You can’t?” Lia took a deep breath, and then another one, feeling as if he’d slapped her. She started toward the house, weaving between hedges and plants until she got to the trellis under her window. “You really are going to leave me behind, then? Again?”

“It’s not like that, Lia.” His chin tipped up to follow her as she scaled the wall and slid through her open window. It took only a moment before he was pulling himself up after her, landing lightly on her bedroom floor.

Knox’s eyes widened as he took in her little room, the bed hung with blue fabric, the flowers on her dressing table. So unlike their stark, cold rooms at the seclusion. “What was your plan when you left?” he asked.

“It wasn’t a plan. It just… happened. And I can’t go back. I won’t.” She sat on the chair in front of her dressing table, jumping when her reflection in the mirror moved. Her eyes looked red against the blue of her scarf. Swollen, though she hadn’t been crying. “I need your help, Knox. I always did.”

“I couldn’t help you when the spiriters took you.” He said it quietly, as if he’d felt that moment of their makeshift family being pried apart just as keenly as she had.

“I know. I don’t blame you. How could I? But we can help each other now.”

“I can’t show you because there’s nothing to show. It’s… complicated. All you ever wanted was to come home.” Knox looked around her room once again. “I can understand why now, I guess. This looks like a home.” There was an odd hitch in his voice, as if he’d found something he wanted more than Calsta. Lia couldn’t imagine what that would be. He smiled, an old smile that sent a nostalgic warmth through her chest. “I can’t say I expected so many ribbons.”

“A girl can like ribbons and stabbing things—”

“Lia!”

Knox and Lia both froze at her father’s shout from down the hall. Lia jumped up to close the door. When she turned back to show Knox where to hide, he was already gone. She darted to the window and stuck her head outside to replace him on the ground below her, shadows clinging to him like ink.

“Lia, are you in there?” Her father’s voice was just outside.

“Please,” she hissed toward Knox. “Don’t leave.”

“You went into the city, Lia?” Her father burst through the closed door without knocking and, replaceing her at the window, rushed to pull it shut with a snap. “When I got home, Aria was putting her horse away. She tried to lie and say you were in the garden.” He leaned against the wall next to the window, his hands covering his face. “How am I supposed to keep you safe if you won’t stay here?”

Lia sat on the bed, not sure what she was supposed to feel. Like the daughter he thought he needed to protect? It didn’t quite fit after so many years of protecting herself. “Has Mother shown any improvement? Tual sent another batch of medicine with Aria.”

“You went to see him?” At her pained expression, he sank down on the bed, letting his hands drop. “She is doing a little better, and normally I’d…” He looked up at the ceiling. “I still think you need to keep your distance from her. If she has to lose you again, I think it will kill her. So until I decide what to do about you—”

“What to do about me?” Lia stood up, every inch of her bristling.

“It’s either send you back to the seclusion you hate so much or let the Warlord replace you and take the consequences.” He swallowed, his fingers digging into his skin. “Or the aukincer. Those are our only three options.”

“How can you say that?” The images she’d seen of herself in her father’s thoughts had been like a dream, proof he’d been missing her as much as she’d missed him. But now, inside the house again, it seemed much less nostalgic. She still was that little girl to him. A responsibility. A problem. “Were you yelling for me because you were angry I left the house, or did you actually need to speak with me?”

Her father caught her hand in his. “I don’t like it any more than you do, Lia. I don’t want you to go back, and I don’t want the Warlord to replace you. That means I have to seriously consider Tual’s offer.”

Lia pulled her hand free. “You have to consider? This isn’t at all what we talked about before.”

“I don’t like this. I hate it, but I’ve spent every minute of the last few days trying to come up with a way for us to stay together and not die.” He rubbed a hand across his forehead and looked at her. “Little Spot, I can’t see another way. We have to deal with the aukincer.”

“You haven’t even asked me what I’ve been doing. What plans I have.”

“All right. What plans do you have?” Lia’s father sat forward. When she didn’t immediately speak, he shook his head. “Lia, you’re a child. You came to me for help, and this is what I have. I’m going to go speak to the Montannes in the morning.”

Lia, you’re a child. Tual’s words about her father sat there at the back of Lia’s brain: I want this to be your choice. Your father would have signed this contract without even asking you. “What about what I want?”

“You don’t want to go back to the seclusion?”

Lia shook her head.

“And you don’t want us to be hung when the Warlord gets here?”

Lia blinked. Then shook her head again.

He breathed out, his mouth pinching. “I sort of hate that I’m saying this, but I need you to be a resource, Lia. Not a weight.”

A resource. Lia walked across the room and lowered herself into the chair as far from her father as she could manage. “If I don’t do what Tual wants, then he won’t have to do anything to destroy our family. Because you already did. If I hadn’t shown up, you’d be scrambling to cover up an assassination attempt, among other things. But now that I’m here, you’ve got an extra resource, a blessing from Calsta that will allow you to fill the hole you dug for yourself?”

“It’s not that black and white, Lia.” Her father stood and paced past her to check the hallway. “If you had stayed here instead of going to the seclusion, your role in our family would have been to make political alliances. You can protect our family. You can protect this city from the governor—he’s turning a blind eye to everything that doesn’t immediately put silver in his coffers. There’s a sickness spreading from the Fig Cay as we speak—”

“But I didn’t stay here. I’m not a normal part of the family to be sold off to whoever will help your career the most.”

“But you’re here now.” He looked at her. “And Tual has the Warlord’s ear. He can save us and you. It’s not about politics. All you have to do is—”

“Give up everything I am. And everything that I want. Again.” Lia tugged at the scarf over her face, her breath hot against her cheeks.

“Please, Lia.” Her father’s voice snapped, as if asking for anything physically pained him. He’d grown used to power; she could see it in the way he held himself. “Talk to the boy. Spend some time with him and his father.” He swallowed, turning away from the door. “I suppose when you say you have plans you mean you could save yourself. You could run from here, be hunted like a wild beast for the rest of your life. The rest of us can’t do that.”

“Why not?” she whispered. “We could all leave. Start a new life somewhere else.”

“You mean you could keep that scarf on? Put on a veil again, and use your power to… make other people believe the things we want them to?” He looked around the room as if there might be some merit to this plan. “We could set up in a city across the border, you could help me gain influence…”

Lia’s throat closed. Put the veil back on? On her father’s command instead of the Warlord’s? Was that better? Would Calsta even stand for it?

Could Lia? Calsta was supposed to protect the Commonwealth, her worshippers all doing their part to build society. Devoted were given extra power to protect everyone else. If Lia used it for herself and her family, what did that make her?

Her father was still talking. “… But even a scheme that takes us over the border seems impossible. Your mother wouldn’t survive the road right now.”

Lia forced her shoulders to straighten and looked her father in the eyes, the way she did an auroshe. An enemy until it saw you as an equal. He didn’t flinch, staring straight back. Lia wished for her armor. For Vivi and his long teeth, a sword to hold back the threats of the world. She wished she didn’t see her father as anything other than the man who had sheltered her in his arms when she was young.

How, in a world that seemed bent on tearing her to pieces, had Father ended up opposing her? How did he become a person who demanded sacrifices like a god rather than volunteering his own sacrifices for the people he loved? She could still feel his arms around her, the way he’d hugged her when she’d stumbled into the house. Could that man really exist in the same space as the one in front of her? Or was it someone else inside him talking? A man who was trying to shelter a girl long grown and doing it exactly the wrong way?

How she wished Calsta were with her just then so she could see the truth in her father’s mind and not the story masking it.

“I’m going to meet with Mateo tonight,” she finally said.

Her father nodded. “I think that’s best.” And then, as if the world, Lia’s life, all of it, were decided, he left the room and shut the door behind him.

The window squeaked as it opened.

“I was a good Devoted, wasn’t I, Knox?” Lia could barely make the words come out.

“Calsta favored you,” Knox said quietly.

She turned to face him, his outline framed in shadow despite the afternoon sun. “But I’ve left her.”

“Have you?”

“I took off my veil. She took her power back.” Lia slumped in the chair. Knox had been taught the same oaths, and the same frightening promises of what would happen if he abandoned them as she had. What would it mean if Lia died and had to face the Sky Painter herself with a string of broken promises circling her throat like a chain? The seclusion had always felt like a mouth closed around Lia, the oaths like teeth, power a boon that didn’t mean much while trapped on a monster’s tongue. But trying to leave only meant the monster would swallow you down.

“I could become a murderer.” She shuddered, thinking of the stable. Balan wasn’t the first person she’d killed. All the others had been trying to kill her at the time of their demise, but they still stuck with her, every one. “Or a thief. I could protect my family with my life now or let them all die painfully one by one, and it wouldn’t matter either way unless I let Calsta put that veil back on my head.” The words choked in her throat and she covered her face with her hands. She didn’t want a veil on her head, never, ever again. “It doesn’t matter what choices I make anymore because I’m already lost.”

“It would matter to your family.” Knox moved to sit on the chair’s arm, leaving space between them as if they were still at the seclusion, every rule about how they could speak, how they could play, talk, and fight burned into his bones. “But I don’t believe Calsta is who you think she is.…” He hesitated for a moment, then said, “It was Calsta who told me to leave the seclusion.”

“Calsta told you to leave?” Lia pulled her hands away from her face to look at him. “The goddess. Calsta?”

“Yes.”

“The goddess who hasn’t spoken to anyone in more than five hundred years? Did she… speak directly into your head? Maybe she brewed up a storm and rained down some words? Or did she actually appear in her broken helmet and press that sword of hers to your throat?”

“Lia…”

“No, I’m sorry. I…” Lia took in a deep breath. Knox had never lied, had never made up stories that weren’t true. Why would he now? “Are you sure? How is this possible? How did the masters not know? Wouldn’t they have shoved you into a room and never let you out?”

Knox licked his lips, looking down at his clasped hands. “The masters didn’t believe me. Calsta’s been speaking to me my whole life. She told me to go to the seclusion after… you know how my family was killed?”

Lia nodded.

“Calsta has been right next to me—well, when she feels like it—from that day until now. Even when I’m not doing what the masters want. I don’t think she’s locked in step with the Warlord the way the masters made it seem. She made me leave. Told me to come here. And she’s kept me safe.”

“Your aura. Calsta hid it?” Lia bit her lip, wondering if all really was lost. She hadn’t thought hiding an aura was possible, but Mateo and Knox—Tual, too—had all somehow received the goddess’s favor despite breaking her rules. Maybe she only liked men. The thought twisted inside Lia, cold, hard, and wrong.

“No, Calsta didn’t hide it. I’m still not sure how it works, exactly, or even when it works. But Calsta is the one who led me to the person who has been hiding me.” Knox shifted uncomfortably, continuing before Lia could ask whom he was talking about. Ask if whoever had helped him would be willing to help her, too. “That man you were with in the apothecary—your father wants you to marry his son?”

“Yes.” It came out bitter. Tual seemed so reasonable, and yet he was the one who held the knife to her throat. If he really cared what happened to Lia, he would help her whether she tied herself to Mateo or not.

“I saw his name on a list of people involved in an excavation outside of town. Tual Montanne?”

Lia stood up and paced across the room, everything so tight inside her about to explode. “So?”

“I told you I’m not sure about hiding auras, but I am planning to leave here soon. It doesn’t sound like your father is interested in abandoning Chaol, but I could help you get out of here. Your mother, your sister. Even your father, if you think he’d come around.”

“Where would we go? The Warlord isn’t going to give up hunting me.”

“Lasei. Where Devoted can’t go.”

Lia stopped. Turned to stare at her friend. “That border has been closed since the shapeshifter wars. I don’t even know what’s on the other side of it, except for Urilia and some writer who had a lot more imagination than he had access to real women.”

“The border’s not closed if you have the money to get across.” Knox looked around at the room, the ribbons, and the silky bedcover. The smile unfolding across his face was utterly foreign, utterly unlike the boy she’d known before. “Seems like someone in your family might.”

“You heard my father. Mother is too sick to survive a trip.”

“My partner is a Beildan healer.”

“Your partner? The same one who is hiding you?”

A faint pink painted across Knox’s cheeks. “She can take care of your mother. But we can’t leave until we’ve finished something.” He sat forward, his fingers digging into the bedspread as he looked up at her. “Your friend Tual has access to an excavation outside of Chaol. What are the chances you could get him to take you inside?”