Storm's Arc

Chapter 4 of 6

Storm followed the sisters out of the guild hall into gray morning light. Raven did not fly toward the stone path. She flew the other way, fast and low, Lucy at her wing. Storm rode the wind behind them. The throne would wait. She saw that now. Her guides were chasing their brother, and if she let them go alone, she would lose them for good. So she chased too. They landed before a vast stone compound. Dark towers rose above severe walls. Green light glowed through narrow slits. The iron gate hung open. Marcus had come here to finish a three-generation hunt, and the open gate meant he had gone inside. "He's past that door," Raven said. Flat. Final. "We go in." "Then we won't climb," Storm said. "Not today. Not ever, if this kills you both." Lucy spun on her. "You care about your throne. Say it." "I care that you're worth more to me alive," Storm said. "And I can open a path your brother can't." Raven's eyes narrowed. Storm raised one hand. Wind tore down from the clouds and slammed the iron gate wide. She pulled the air thin inside the courtyard, then dropped cold through it. Frost cracked across the stone. Whatever hunted their bloodline lived in heat and shadow. Storm meant to take both away. "I freeze its ground," Storm said. "You two end it. Together, not alone." Lucy grinned, teeth showing. "Now she's useful." They went through the gate as one. The thing waited in the dark tower, long and low and fast. It lunged for Lucy. Storm froze the floor under its claws. It slid. Raven drove a blade through its throat before it caught itself. Lucy pinned the tail. The hunt that broke their grandfather ended in the time it took the frost to melt. Marcus limped out of the shadow, one wing torn, blood on his black and red. He looked at his sisters. Then at Storm. "You brought help," he said. "She brought weather," Raven said. Marcus studied Storm a long moment. "Grandfather needed an army. You needed cold." He almost smiled. "I owe you." "Then pay her," Raven said. "We climb the path. All three of us. First of the clan to the throne." She looked at Storm, and the boredom was gone from her face. "You didn't leave us for your throne. We don't forget that." Storm had chased them from the path and found their brother alive. The debt had flipped. Now the sisters owed her, and they knew it. But Marcus stood between her and the gate, wing dragging, barely able to stand. "Dawn," Raven said. "We climb at dawn." Marcus coughed blood onto the frost. His torn wing would not carry him up a stone path. And the sisters would not climb while he bled. Storm had traded one delay for another, closer to the throne, but still held at the foot of it.