He found Reef up the trail, stalling Bear and Wylan, who’d come in search of him. As they walked back to the compound, Bear spoke of the trouble he was having with a pair of farmers, Gray and Rowan. Wylan chimed in with petty complaints every dozen paces, his voice sharp and angry, as always. No matter what Perry did or said, it was never good enough for Wylan, who’d been one of Vale’s most devoted followers.
Perry listened with half a mind, doing all he could to keep himself from smiling.
An hour later, he sat on the roof of his house, alone for the first time in days. He dropped his arms over his knees and closed his eyes, relishing the cool mist on his skin. When the breeze died down and he breathed in deeply, he scented traces of Aria. She was in Vale’s room now, inside the house. Laughter drifted through the crack in the roof beside him. The Six were playing a game of dice. He could hear Twig and Gren’s usual banter. Auds both, they talked constantly, always arguing, competing over everything.
Lamps flickered around the compound and smoke drifted from chimneys, mingling with the salt air. This late in the night, only a few people were still about. Perry lay back, watching the Aether light sift down through the thinner patches in the clouds and listening to the volley of their voices across the clearing.
“How’s the baby’s fever?” Molly asked someone.
“Dropping, thank the sky,” came the answer. “He’s sleeping now.”
“Good, let him rest. I’ll bring him down to the sea in the morning. It’ll open up his lungs.”
Perry inhaled, letting the ocean air open his own lungs. He’d grown up under the care of many, much like the baby they spoke of. As a child, he’d crawled up into the nearest lap to sleep. When he’d had fever or a cut that needed stitches, Molly had nursed him back to health. The Tides were a small tribe, but they were also a big family.
Perry wondered where Cinder was but knew he’d come back on his own, just as Roar had said. When Perry saw him, he’d lay into Cinder for running off, and then he’d find out what happened in the cookhouse.
“Perry!”
He sat up in time to catch a wadded blanket, tossed from below.
“Thanks, Molly.”
“Don’t know why you’re up there, and they’re all warm in your house,” she said, and bustled away.
But Molly did know. There were few secrets in a tribe this small. Everyone knew about his nightmares. Up here, at least, he could pass the sleepless time by reading scents on the breeze and watching the play of light through the clouds. Such a strange spring, with a thick blanket of clouds always above. Much as he feared the Aether, part of him would have felt better if he could see it now.
Brooke fell in step with him as he left the compound at dawn, her bow and quiver over her shoulder. “Where you heading?”
“Same place you are,” he said. She was a Seer, and one of the best archers in the tribe, so Perry had given her the task of teaching everyone in the Tides how to shoot a bow. Her lessons were near the same field where he was meeting Bear.
Their walk was awkward and quiet. He noticed she still wore one of his arrowheads on a strip of leather around her neck, and he tried not to think of the day he gave it to her, or what it had meant to both of them. He cared about her, and that would never change. But it was over between them. He’d told her so over the winter, as gently as he could, and hoped soon she’d see it too.
As they reached the eastern field, he found an argument already nearing a boil: two farmers, Rowan and Gray, who wanted more help in the fields than Perry could give them. Bear stood between them, massive, yet gentle as a kitten.
“Look at this,” said Rowan, the young farmer whose child had had fever the night before. He lifted a boot sopping with mud. “I need a retaining wall. Something to stop the debris from coming down the hill. And I need more drainage.”
Perry’s gaze moved to the hillside half a mile away. Aether storms had wiped the lower portion to nothing more than ash. When the spring rains started, waves of mud and debris flowed down the slope. The whole shape of the hill was changing without the trees there to hold the earth fast.
“This is nothing,” Gray said. He stood a full head shorter than Perry and Bear. “Half my land’s underwater. I need people. I need use of the ox. And I need them both more than he does.”
Gray had a kind face and a mild manner, but Perry often scented wrath from him. Gray didn’t have a Sense—he was Unmarked, like most people—but he despised that. As a young man, he’d wanted to be a sentry or a guard, but those posts went to Auds and Seers, whose Senses gave them a clear advantage. His choices limited, Gray had been left to farming.
Perry had heard all this from Gray and Rowan before, but he needed the resources they wanted—manpower, horses, oxen—for more important tasks. Perry had ordered defense trenches constructed around the compound and a second well plumbed by the cookhouse. He was having the walls fortified and their cache of weapons bolstered. And he’d ordered every Tider—from six to sixty years old—to learn at least the basic use of both a bow and a knife.
At nineteen, Perry was young for a Blood Lord. He knew he’d be seen as inexperienced. An easy mark. He was sure the Tides would be raided in the spring by roving bands and tribes who’d lost their homes to the Aether.
As Gray’s and Rowan’s pleas continued, Perry arched his back, feeling his poor night of sleep. Had he become Blood Lord for this? To trudge through sopping fields so he could listen to bickering? Nearby, Brooke gave Gray’s boys, seven and nine years old, their archery lesson. Far more entertaining than listening to squabbling.
He had never wanted this part of being Blood Lord. He’d never thought about how to feed nearly four hundred people when the winter stores were gone, before the spring yield arrived. He’d never imagined warranting the marriage of a couple older than he was. Or having the eyes of a mother with a feverish child on him, searching for the answer. When Molly’s cures failed, they turned to him. They always turned to him when things went wrong.
Bear’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts. “What do you say, Perry?”
“You both need help. I know that. But you’re going to have to wait.”
“I’m a farmer, Perry. I need to do what I know,” said Rowan. He waved a hand toward Brooke. “I got no business shooting a bow when I have this to deal with.”
“Learn it anyway,” Perry said. “It could save your life, and more.”
“Vale never had us do that, and we were fine.”
Perry shook his head. He couldn’t believe his ears. “Things are different now, Rowan.”
Gray stepped forward. “We’ll starve next winter if we don’t seed soon.”
The tone in his voice—sure and demanding—streaked Perry. “We may not be here next winter.”
Rowan balked, his eyebrows drawing together. “Where will we be?” he said, his voice rising in pitch. He and Gray exchanged a look.
“You’re not really serious about moving us to the Still Blue?” said Gray.
“We may not have a choice,” Perry said. He remembered his brother ordering these same men, with no arguments. No convincing. When Vale had spoken, they had obeyed.
Brooke walked over, brushing sweat from her brow. “Perry, what’s wrong?” she asked.
He realized he’d been pinching the bridge of his nose. A burning sensation spiked deep in his sinuses. He looked up, a curse slipping through his lips.
The clouds had broken apart at last. High above, he saw the Aether. It didn’t run in lazy, glowing currents, as was normal for this time of year. Instead, thick rivers flowed above him, glaring and bright. In some places the Aether coiled like snakes, forming funnels, which would strike at the earth and unleash fire.
“That’s a winter sky,” Rowan said, his voice filled with confusion.
“Dad, what’s going on?” asked one of Gray’s sons.
Perry knew exactly what was going on. He couldn’t deny what he saw—or the burn in the back of his nose.
“Get home now!” he told them, then sprinted to the compound. Where would the storm hit? West, over the sea? Or directly on them? He heard the blast of a signal horn, and then others farther away, alerting farmers to take shelter. He had to reach the fishermen, who’d be harder to alert and bring in safely.
He shot through the main gate of the compound, into the clearing. People rushed to their homes, shouting at one another in panic. He scanned their faces.
Roar ran up. “What do you need?”
“Find Aria.”
6
ARIA
The rain began suddenly, carrying on a gust that hit Aria like a cold slap. She sprinted back to the compound on the trail she’d been wandering all morning, lost in thoughts of Realms that suddenly glitched and froze. Her knives drummed a reassuring rhythm against her thighs as she followed the path through the woods, the wind whipping around her.
At the sound of a horn, she skidded to a halt and looked up. Through the gaps in the rain clouds she saw thick flows of Aether. Seconds later she heard the distinctive shriek of a funnel—a ripping, high-pitched peal that sent ice through her veins. A storm now? The storms should’ve already ended for the year.
She ran again, picking up her pace. Months ago, she’d been right under a storm with Perry. She’d never forget the burn across her skin when the funnels struck close, or how her body had seized.
“River!” called a far-off voice. “Where are you?”
She froze and listened for sounds through the hissing rain. More voices. Everyone yelling the same thing, their shouts of distress sharp to her ears. She squeezed her numb hands into fists. Who was she to help? The Tides hated her. But then another voice called out—closer this time—the sound so desperate and fearful that she moved without thinking. She knew how it felt to search for someone who was gone. They might not accept her help, but she had to try.
She jogged off the trail onto thick, slippery mud, sounds guiding her to a dozen people scanning the woods. Her knees locked when she recognized Brooke.
“What are you doing here, Mole?” Soaked, Brooke looked crueler than usual. Her blond hair lay dark and slick against her skull, her eyes cold as marbles. “You took him, didn’t you, child snatcher?”
Aria shook her head. “No! Why would I do that?” Her eyes moved to the weapon over Brooke’s shoulder.
Molly, the older woman Aria had met in the cookhouse, rushed over. “You’re wasting time, Brooke. Keep looking!” She waited until Brooke moved on. Then she took Aria by the arm and spoke low and close, as rain rolled down her full cheeks. “We didn’t see this coming. None of us expected a storm.”
“Who’s missing?” Aria asked.
“My grandson. He’s barely two years old. His name is River.”
Aria nodded. “I’ll find him.”
The others were working away from the trail, heading deeper into the woods, but Aria’s gut told her to search nearby. Moving slowly, she kept close to the path. She didn’t call out. Instead she strained to hear the slightest sounds through the wind and the rain. Time passed with nothing but the slosh of her footsteps and the rush of water pouring downhill. The shrieks of the Aether grew louder, and her head began to pound, the noise of the storm overwhelming her ears. A humming sound stopped her in her tracks.