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I grabbed for Tempest but while I paused, she had continued ahead. This was her world and she’d showed me more than once that she could take care of herself, still anger and fear narrowed my vision when two men pushed between us. She was short enough to disappear instantly in the sea of shoving, elbowing, cursing people.
Pushing to get to her, I became one of them as the animalistic terror of being trampled tried to make me turn and run again and again. Not without her.
Growing up in the spacious palace, training on Cherny with the griffon riders on the steppe and then sent to the mountains, this was more people than I had ever experienced without guards to keepthem back. Wind whisperers naturally desired open spaces, and I fought to not close my eyes as the noise rolled over me.
Ahead, someone cried in pain.
Find her, I begged the wind. Let Tempest not be trampled.
More people shouted, their voices turning into fear as others pushed up from behind to hear whatever the speaker ahead was spewing. I saw her now—a woman standing on tables stacked into an impromptu stage at the crossroad. The wind carried her words to me.
Tal is meant for all. Claim it. Join together. They let us burn. The world is changing. So can we. None can stand against us.
Around her, people cheered, unaware of the chaos they caused further down the narrow street. I spun, searching for Vanya. There were too many faces. The squeeze too tight. I wore two hidden blades but pulling them here might be what sets off a stampede. The orator had one thing right—here, no one could stand against the masses.
A group with hidden faces threw rocks through store windows, kicked in doors and tore through the insides.
Someone staggered into me, clutching my arm to not be pulled down. Seeing the grinning boy no older than twelve, I fought the instinct to free myself. He probably thought himself untouchable still. Would he listen to the speaker and rush the palace one day? Would my guards cut him down?
He slipped and the point became moot. To fight any battle, we needed to survive today. With magic and a few precise punches, I forced those next to us momentarily back and pulled him up.
His wide-eyed stare told me he finally understood the danger.
There, the wind said.
My eyessnapped up to the roof on our right. A small figure crouched at the ledge, as if ready to dive back down.
Safe. My Tempest was wonderfully safe. In this moment, I could think of her no other way. Claiming her on the barge had been for show; here, silently in my heart, it was something else. Something I did not dare to examine too closely, for it was stupid, proved me an easily steered pawn, and she surely did not feel the same.
But if they killed her here—meaninglessly, unknowingly, destroyed someone so wonderfully alive—I knew my revenge would equal whatever my father might have proposed. Griffons would descend. The prison fill. With blade and coin, I would continued until I found the orator and made her pay. I might have hated myself for it afterward, but I had long accepted I would ruin myself for revenge. For—
I fought for each step, closer and closer, the boy still clinging to my coat. Without magic, we would not have made it. I did not possess a lot, but sometimes even a little is enough to give you the necessary advantage.
Spotting me, Vanya waved us toward the dead-end alley where roses climbed the house walls.That’s how she got three floors up?
People stood packed in the alley, watching the street with horror. We all knew that we would be squeezed to death if enough thought they could escape through here.
The boy let go of me and scrambled up to Vanya without so much as a nod in my direction. Ungrateful little bastard. I hoped never to see him again, for I feared then we would be on opposite sides.
I attempted to follow. The wood trellis cracked, then snapped.
Tempest—her face pale and hair wild—bent over the edge as if to breach the distance between us and pull me up.
“Stay there!” I called and settled against the wall to wait it out.
The woman next to me rubbed my coat sleeve between her fingers. I slapped her hand away, but there was nowhere to go when she smiled toothlessly.
“Fine fabric that. Fine accent. You don’t belong here.”
More of the people waiting out the rioting turned to watch.
“There’s no need—” I started only for the heavyset man next to her to cut me off.
“What do you know of need? Those out there stamped and stole all the fruit in my stand, when really they want your kind.”
“Think of this like a tax,” the woman said, stretching to riffle through my coat pockets. “The Wishmaker blessing me.”
I slapped her hand away again. Would giving away the money I carried appease them?
