PART I
SEA
1
VIOLENT LIKE A STORM AND FIERCE LIKE THE OCEAN
LUELLA
Air roared around Luella Eritrais, more than a mere whisper. It knocked on the stone walls of the castle with entreating force, unable to be ignored.
A nightmare. One wrought by her mind, by her will.
She had been forced to shove it all down—all the ways she’d been walked on, used, abused. A pawn moved about the board at the King’s whim. Spanning even beyond that.
The skeletal hands of Fate plucked at the threads of her destiny like a harp. One finger tugging at the string, and she moved, dancing like a puppet. Another, twisting and creating a beautifully haunting melody. And Luella was forced to answer the call.
She was a vessel. A tool. Crafted to be used at the behest of others.
And she had shoved it all down, locked it all away. But locking it away did not mean it was gone, merely hidden from sight. Now it was here. Her reckoning. Vengeance.
A tempest had come, formed by her power, alone. Even if she had not wanted this, there was no way she could stop it now.
Even when she cried and pleaded, clinging to the hands that kept her down, protected her.
"Please—please—I can’t stop it. Tharen, Vale—" She tripped and stumbled over her words, desperate for anyone to quell the power that seeped out of her, flowing from within her very soul. She felt as it swept outward, torn from inside her without her permission.
It ached. It burned. It felt wondrous.
She exhaled, and wind whipped around them all. Drew in a ragged breath, and it turned to a raging crescendo of whirls, ripping the blue-tinged curtains down from their hooks and lifting hastily discarded clothes where they had been thrown over the backs of chairs.
The shattered skylight above let in a deluge of rain. From how she lay on the ground, under Tharen, water soaked her back, dampening the glamored bandages wrapped tightly around her midsection. The mass of aches centered around her spine only built up the feelings within her—the well of rightful anger flowed out more swiftly, seeking vengeance on her behalf. She felt the water’s coldness against the sensitive tips of her feathers, and it made her shake.
Luella wanted them to pay.
But she didn’t. No, no,no, she didn’t.
"I didn’t mean to," she sobbed, unhearing, unfeeling.
No, that wasn’t true.
She did hear. She did feel.
Heard too much. The raging force of her storm. Wind battered against the stone walls of the castle, making them feel far too fragile. Like a castle crafted of sand, one harsh gust and it would topple into nothing.
Felt too much. Pain—the sore, aching mess of her body. Pushed to her limits in the arduous journey to the Temples of Aedis. She hadn’t even had time to recover from the trek on foot before she had been forcibly tied to a pillar of stone, deep within the Temples, and spent a night with Vale’s dragon. Her feetwere blistered. The spot where her wings had ripped through muscle tissue and skinburnedlike fire. And in the space right below her breasts, nestled above her navel, she felt the vast well of her power—a place that had once been empty and filled with darkness, now fit to burst. And itwasbursting. Breaking free.
She felt the water under her. Each lap of it against her frozen skin like small shards of ice, pricking her with memories of salt in her lungs and hands on her throat.
But she did not drown. Not this time.
Tharen was above her. He had dove atop her when the enchanted chandelier had met its end. His large, calloused hands gripped her cheeks with ferocity, forcing her startled eyes to his, where they consumed her from behind the simple black of his mask, etched with swirls like snow around the edges.
"Luella, stop it! Stop this!" Tharen yelled to be heard over the storm. It was so loud that it rattled through her body and shook the watery ground, ripples splashing against her flesh.
"I can’t.Please, Tharen," Luella begged. "Make me stop. I don’t want t-to bethis." She squeezed her eyes shut behind her feathered mask, undone by what she brought to Serpentis, to the very front steps of the castle.
Wind roared. The tapestries and blue fluttering curtains ripped through the throne room and smacked against the scant few unsuspecting revelers who hurried to flee to safety, somewhere away from windows, tucked deeply underground. They scrambled and screamed, and Luella wanted to follow.
