She did not know how to answer, but then he began to speak, recounting the rise of the storm and his own attempt to diffuse it. Her throat ached when she swallowed, and she focused on breathing to fight the tears she could feel begging for release. She said, “You went for the heart when you could have just dispersed it. Why?”
“It was a powerful storm. Strong enough that it might have taken me a long while to dismantle it. And with it right over us, there was too much risk that you or I would be struck before I could get it down. Going for the heart was the fastest way to end it.”
“And more dangerous for you.” She couldn’t stop the anger in her words. The memories were rising, and she could not forget the way it had felt to feel both his pain and the storm’s.
“I’ve taken on skyfire before. I knew I could handle it.”
She wanted to shake him, to beat her fists on his chest until he was as distraught as she. “I could feel it. I felt your soul struggling. You could have died, Locke. And then after I pushed you away, you … you were dying.”
Her voice broke, and the tears came. She was too weak to hold them off. She buried her face in her hands, curling into her knees, and cried for how terrifying that night had been, for her fear of losing him and the way it had completely shattered her inside. And she cried for that storm. That frightened, innocent storm.
He made a noise between a groan and a growl, and pulled her tight into his body. He wrapped his arms around her, knees and all, and held her tight.
With his forehead pressed to the back of her neck, he said, “You could have died too, you know.”
That only made her cry harder because it wasn’t true. That storm would never have hurt her, and in return she had … killed it? Was that the word when you ripped a spirit out of existence? It tore at her all over again because when she had reached into that soul, she felt clearly how afraid and confused it was. And she had confirmation that the Sacred Soul believers were right about at least some things. She’d seen flashes of a small boy in a desert town not too different from Toleme. She’d seen his parents—love and adoration clear on their faces. She experienced flashes of his childhood—games played with other children, the bed he shared with his older brother, and the storm that had taken his life. Rather than passing on, he had stayed to watch over his family, too afraid that he would miss them if he went. And when they grew old and died, he simply faded into the ether until Roar unknowingly called him from the sky with her blood sacrifices.
She grieved for him, for what she’d taken from him. And when she saw the flash of her skyfire heart below her, she could not help but wonder if some part of him was with her still.
Locke’s hands ran up and down her bare legs, from ankle to knee again and again—soothing away the chill that clung to her skin. He turned his head, pressing his cheek against the left side of her back, above her heart. “Shh, princess. We are alive and together. That’s what matters. We’re both okay.”
If only that were true. But Roar had begun to think that she was very much not okay. She could feel things. Things that scared her. Things that she hoped she was imagining. She rested her chin on her knees, staring out at the swift current of the river. When the words came, they were barely above a whisper. “It’s my fault.”
“No, brave girl. None of this is your fault.”
He always thought too highly of her, even when she did not deserve his trust, and never had. She uncurled, straightening her legs, and he wasted no time in pulling her back against his chest, winding his arms around her middle. He felt so good around her, so safe. She turned her head to the side, hiding her face against his neck. But as much as she reveled in his touch, she felt equally compelled to pull away. To make him pull away. To make him understand that she was nowhere near as good as he believed her to be.
“It is,” she insisted. “Everything that happened that night was because of me. I called that storm and then I killed it.”
“You didn’t kill it. You did what you had to do to survive. That’s our frame for this life, remember? We survive. Nothing else matters.”
“You don’t understand. You couldn’t.”
“Try me. Tell me why you think you called the storm.”
She could tell him a great deal more than that. Even now, she felt the cold brush of hundreds of souls around her, thousands, maybe more. She could feel them in the earth, in the trees, in the rushing waters. They lingered in the air, and she had the peculiar fear that if she took too deep a breath she might breathe one in. Some were sweet, innocent, like her skyfire boy. Others bore more resemblance to the twister that had filled her with such fury. Those souls were dark and twisted and hungry. They wanted to be storms, pushed at her to make it so. And she knew with a bone-deep certainty that she could do it. She could call any one of them to be a storm.
The thought frightened her enough that she gripped the hands Locke had on her abdomen, pressing them in, making him hold her harder.
She said, “He was innocent. I called him to manifest as skyfire and then killed him when all he wanted was my attention.”
“Why are you calling it a him?”
Oh gods. She didn’t know if she could admit out loud what she had done, just how heinous a betrayal it had been.
“I felt his soul, Locke. Not just emotions. His soul. I communicated with it. It was … a child.”
“You mean like a young storm?”
“No. I mean that the soul of that storm used to belong to a human child. The emotions I feel from storms come from real souls of human spirits that have not passed on. The soul of that twister had been consumed by violence and revenge. The thunderstorm was overwhelmed with grief. And the skyfire … the skyfire was a child who didn’t want to leave his family. That restless feeling I had before the storm? That was him. I had been calling to him for days, and he was tired of waiting. He wanted to … play.”
“I’ve never come up against a storm that wasn’t bent on violence and destruction. That storm certainly didn’t feel innocent when it was trying to scorch me.”
“He was afraid. I know it sounds insane, but I promise you he did not mean to harm us. Not in the beginning. While you were unconscious, we … spoke in a way. Images and feelings passed back and forth. When I explained that you were hurt, he felt remorse.”
“Roar, it’s not poss—”
“It is possible. I know what I felt. That storm was more afraid of us than we were of it. And I—I killed it. I destroyed it. I’m the monster here.”
“Don’t do that.”
She was crying again. She couldn’t help it. She kept remembering the feel of that soul, his fear and confusion and the way he had surrendered to her without any hesitation. He trusted her. Locke’s hands started those soothing, sweeping movements again, this time along the outside of her thighs—knee to hip and back again. “You are not a monster. You could never be.”
“You don’t know.” He did not know anything about her. Not really. If she told him the truth—not just about the storms but about who she was—he would never forgive her.