Princess Rainy's Arc

Chapter 9 of 12

Two days on the road had worn Rainy thin. She rode her grandfather's tiger up the northern slope, its white reins tight in her hands. Rowan rode ahead on his polar bear, the blue saddle dusted with snow. Her lynx padded between the two mounts. Rainy pulled her sky-blue coat tighter. She hated winter. It was always cold, always miserable, and now the sky ahead looked wrong. Rowan reined the bear to a stop. He pointed north with one gloved hand. "See that?" A dark wall of cloud climbed over the passes. It moved fast, swallowing the peaks one by one. "Storm," he said. "A bad one. If it catches us out here, we freeze." Rainy's chest tightened. There was no cave, no hut, nothing but open rock and wind. "How long?" she asked. "Less than an hour." Rowan's pale green eyes searched the slope. "We can't outrun it. We can't reach the shelf before it breaks." He looked at her, steady but grim. "I don't have an answer for this one, Rainy." She stared at the churning cloud. Snow and wind were only water, moving. She had bent water her whole life. But a storm this size could break her. "Get the mounts close," Rainy said. "All of us together. Now." Rowan did not argue. He swung the bear around beside the tiger. The lynx pressed against the tiger's leg. Rainy slid from the saddle and planted her boots in the snow. The first gust hit her face like a slap. She raised both hands. She reached out with her mind toward the wind, toward the ice riding inside it. The storm fought her. It shoved and clawed, wild and huge. Rainy pushed back. She did not try to stop it. She only bent it, curving the wind up and over their heads like water splitting around a stone. Snow roared past on every side. Inside her small circle, the air went still. The tiger stood firm. The bear lowered its head. Rowan gripped his reins and watched her, silent. Rainy's arms shook. Her knees buckled. Sweat froze on her brow. She held the bend as long as she could, counting her breaths, until the worst of the storm passed over and thinned to gray flurries. Then she let go. She dropped to her knees in the snow. Rowan was off the bear at once, catching her arm before she fell farther. "I'm all right," she gasped, though her sight swam. He steadied her, his face close. "You bent a storm," he said quietly. "I saw it. That was amazing." He looked north, where the clouds broke apart over the ice shelf. "But you can barely stand. And the shelf is still weeks ahead, please let me take you to my castle my family will heal you and keep you safe." Rainy nodded, breathing hard. She had saved them. She had also spent nearly everything she had, and the hardest crossing had not yet begun. She needed to rest. Rowan lifted her onto her Sabertooth Tiger. “Then we ride another night and we will be there, hold on okay, stay strong.” His voice broke.