17

It was painful, watching Kimke as she stalked some distance ahead, hands clenched into fists. She never looked over her shoulder and didn’t seem to care if Caru and Mieta still followed. Martel’s death had cut her deeply, and Caru worried that Mieta was the only human around for Kimke to hate. Caru hated the Seranian military even more—especially knowing that Theop himself was the root of their agony—but Mieta wasn’t like that. If anything, she was the only human he had trusted in nearly three weeks.

Meanwhile Mieta kept her head bowed, watching her feet as they shuffled along. When they approached the storm’s edge, they turned north toward Chasar. There was no longer a pressing need to go into the storm, but they could still hold the border and make it to Chasar in several days if they pushed themselves. Wind blew rain over them so many times that they no longer bothered wiping it away. Kimke marched, Mieta looked to her feet, and Caru wondered if he could make any of it better.

Caru cursed himself. He should have been able to do something more while Martel fought. A few tools had remained in the shed, and he wondered if there was anything he could have done differently, anything that wouldn’t have gotten them all killed. But no, he was not a trained fighter; anything he had tried would have only put him in the way or caused more damage. He remembered the night they’d left Kalis, when he’d feinted weakly with the spear against the fallen soldier, never able to find an attack he was confident in. Martel had accepted the spear from him and finished the job. Martel had been their protector, and his death bore into Caru deeper than any amount of spinecorn ever could. Sometimes, when he let his guard down, Caru allowed himself to weep for their loss.

Each time he did, he knew he didn’t feel a fraction of what Kimke did.

The sun sped across the sky, carving a path from horizon to zenith, shrinking shadows away from the Tempest’s face. The showers the storm expelled usually passed quickly, but the pouring rain constantly stung Caru’s scratches and cuts. The gashes at his knees and elbows still leaked blood, never having time to heal without use. If nothing else, the rain washed him clean, but he still felt himself pressed to the brink of exhaustion. Mieta bore plenty of her own scrapes and scratches, but she grimaced each time she looked at him. He didn’t know if he wanted to know what he looked like if his ripped and bloodied shirt was any indication. His feet ached as the sun disappeared behind Edaria shortly after noon. Mieta slowed her pace, but Kimke remained resolute. If he and Mieta stopped for a rest, they might be able to catch up to her later. If anything, she walked faster with each passing sheet of rain. Following her felt more like a pursuit than an escape.

The land cooled as the sun hid, and the showers came more frequently. Caru shivered with a chill and very nearly called out to Kimke to slow down, but she ran from him and Mieta as surely as she fled from anything they were leaving behind in Serana. If she kept her pace, she would march until she passed out.

Finally he called out. “Kimke!” he shouted. They had to stop, or they would die. His voice was thick and hoarse, barely sounding like himself at all. Mieta patted him across the back; thankfully that hadn’t been pulped the night before. She offered a warm smile before trailing the hand away and distancing herself to his right. The gesture was clear: If Kimke turned around, it would be best for her to see them separated. Caru brought his hands to his mouth in a cone, and he bellowed her name again. “Kimke!” Thunder echoed from within the Tempest.

Up ahead, Kimke shook her head and broke into a run. Caru cursed as he pushed off the ground, chasing after her. She was the slower runner, but Caru’s wounds caught up with him quickly. Between his ragged breaths, he heard Mieta following close behind. His muscles felt like water, as if they would dissolve in the storm’s next wave. No sleep in over a day and nearly two days without food. He wanted to shout to Mieta to stop running, that he would take care of everything and bring Kimke back when he settled her. He knew Kimke wouldn’t want to see Mieta, not yet. Kimke needed time to compose herself, if time would even let her heal that wound.

“Kimke!” he shouted again. Her name burned in his throat.

She ran faster.

Deep scratches split open again, and he saw blood blossoming on his forearm with each step forward. A gust of wind blew more rain on him, and it burned. His vision blurred, and pain flared into agony. It was nothing compared to his treatment while imprisoned, but it was enough to make him consider stopping. Gold flecks spotted his vision, but he blinked them away. This was no time to faint.

At least Mieta knew better than to run ahead and restrain Kimke. Caru didn’t think he had the strength to break up a fight. Wind blew more rain on him, but he clenched his teeth and forced his way through. Thunder boomed, and Caru yelled in a wild, wordless howl. How far would the skullbashing woman run?

“Kimke!”

And then she did the one thing he’d hoped she wouldn’t.

She screamed, covered her ears, and veered left, sprinting forward a short distance before diving into the seemingly solid wall of rain that marked the Eternal Tempest’s edge. She disappeared quickly behind a cover of heavy rain, fading from black to gray to nothing.

Caru ignored his body’s pleas as he followed. He covered several hundred feet before crashing against the storm. He cursed again as he heard Mieta splashing through behind him. Lightning stabbed in the distance with multiple strikes, and a twinge pulsed in his back, where his wings had once rested. It wasn’t pain, but something else that felt familiar. A quiet hum. He tried shouting Kimke’s name through the storm, but his lungs were no match for the Tempest. Anything he said was gone as soon as it came from his mouth. He looked over his shoulder. Nothing. He stood so near the edge of the storm but could no longer see a way out. Only rain in all directions. Then there was Mieta, slowly approaching.

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It would be easy to get lost in here, Caru knew. He wondered if there was some trick to navigating down here, and he cursed to himself when he realized that Martel had probably known one. He had trained down here at some point to become a Sentinel, so they must have taught him something. The land was largely featureless, and getting turned around would only drive them deeper within the storm.

He paused and considered abandoning Kimke. Only for an instant, and the corresponding chill wasn’t brought about by the rain.

Mieta came to his side, her arms folded over her waist, hunched forward as rain smoothed her long black hair over her back. He turned and looked into her eyes. Though she looked resolute, she looked like she was crying. It was hard to tell with the rain, but he wanted to cry himself.

Her lips moved, but no sound reached him. Lightning punched the ground nearby. How had they ever thought to escape through this?

Of course they had; they’d had Martel.

The landscape inside was completely barren, scoured clean by centuries. No plants, no animals, only an unending expanse of stone and mud that seemed to spread out forever.

There was that tickle between his shoulders again. He didn’t understand how, but it seemed to point somewhere. He shook his head. His mind was cracking under the strain. He spun in circles, looking for direction.

Then his feet moved. He looked back to Mieta and then pointed toward…something. It was faint, but it felt right, like coming home after a long absence. Mieta nodded and followed behind as he led them to where this itch indicated. He worried he would drown beneath the constant rain.

Had he ever felt thirst? Impossible.

The sensation in his back was faint, but it was insistent. Was this how the Sentinels navigated the storm?

Time passed without meaning. No sun, no sky, only the ever-present rain, lighting, and howling wind. How many hours? One? Two? Six? He shuffled forward into the storm, worried that he and Mieta would become separated. Panic rose within his chest as he imagined being lost in this storm until he died from exposure, but he feared that was already likely. Yet each time he turned to look, there she was, resolute.

Kimke was lost in this blasted storm somewhere. Did she feel the same itch between her shoulders?

His mouth and throat worked to make the word “Kimke,” but not even Caru could hear it anymore.

His body cried in pain, but he pressed forward. Kimke may not understand anyone but herself, but Caru wanted to find her again, needed to find her. Eight days had passed since the three ermen had escaped human imprisonment. One of those had already died, and he would be damned if he let her die as well. He would rush forward, grab her, find a way back out of the storm, and then—

There, in the distance. Lightning focused at a single point. Red, blue, pink, purple, all colors crashing together. The sensation in his back pointed there. He knew he had to reach it. The storm hummed with its own quiet breath, but that one point was alive. Though Mieta must have had her own questions, she followed without hesitation. If she thought Caru knew any more than she, it would be foolish. Foolish if she thought that being erman meant that Caru had insight into the world’s workings. No one knew anything about the Tempest so far in, and this maybe by only a dozen miles. Tomes of literature had been written about it from the outside, but Caru knew he was already further in than anyone he’d heard of had ever been before. No writings would mention this. Martel certainly hadn’t said anything about it.

Walking this far in as an erman would have been suicide. Martel said that wings could attract the lightning if they were spread wide, as though the lightning wanted to take the place of the moon’s aether. Normal lightning alone would typically keep ermen on the ground during storms, and this was far from ordinary.

He still worked his lungs to call after Kimke, despite the futility. Mieta now walked at his side rather than following. Exhaustion was a constant presence. Most of Caru’s cuts and gouges were open again, and the wind and rain damaged his body further. He staggered, but Mieta’s hand pressed into the small of his back and urged him forward. Lightning met at one focal point, and something finally came into view.

It was incredible.

Caru turned to Mieta—she really did look ragged after exposure to the Tempest—and motioned for her to follow. Somewhere from deep within, he found the strength to run, feet plunging into muddy ground with each stride. His body screamed for him to stop, but he pushed forward. That sensation in his back had led him true.

He halted as he came to the bottom of a tiered pedestal, black as midnight. A high, vaulted arch rose from the center of the highest level, the peak reaching almost thirty feet into the air. Strange symbols covered the Portal’s surface, seeming to dance and shift even as they remained still.

He turned to Mieta, hopeful. She looked up, confused.

No one was here to hold the Portal open, but it was active. Light shone through the symbols across its surface and along the joined seams, radiating through the striations of the frozen ebony rope that ran its length. It kept dimming, but it regained strength each time lightning struck the peak. The roar of the storm was deafening, but lightning held the Portal open. A surface like fluid filled the Portal’s interior. It didn’t move in the rain and wind. In the middle of the Tempest, that one surface remained perfectly still, smooth as glass.

Open!

His mind raced with the word.

It was somewhat concerning that this one was filled with red light and yellow swirls instead of the blue that he had seen in every other Portal. Something was different, but the mere existence of this Portal shook everything he thought he knew. Here it was, and it was open.

Caru gripped Mieta’s hand and felt a comforting squeeze. He looked to her for confirmation, and she nodded. They made their way up the pedestal steps, and all of his body’s pain muted. He pressed his free hand against the Portal surface, relieved to find it felt the same as ever. He grinned at Mieta as they stepped through the Portal, eager to see what was on the other side.