Wind Wielder

Chapter 42 - Ruining Ruses

The following morning Zara checked her notebook, finding the number 'two' written in looping cursive writing from yesterday. Followed by the number 'one', from this morning.

She didn't care. She couldn't bring herself to be the slightest bit worried.

Not when she was already plotting Eris's death.

Zara and Azriel shared a quiet breakfast in the Moonstone Palace. Although Zara wasn't hungry. She sat there sipping her tea, listening to the constant flow of winds outside, her hand running a mile a minute on a pad of paper.

"You ready?" Azriel asked after a moment. He stood from his chair and walked over to hers, offering a hand. Zara accepted and stood up slowly.

Her whole body ached. But nothing more than her chest. Zara was mortified with herself for daring to go as far as she did with that spy yesterday... for destroying him as wholly as she had. But the news had gutted her in a way few things could.

She wasn't ready to go back to real life pretending she hadn't completely destroyed a person with her bare hands and rage. She wasn't ready to pretend that the news he had delivered had destroyed her far worse than the physical harm she had inflicted on him.

Some wounds went deeper than others. And this one... this one started at a blurry beautiful face hovering above her, making her feel warm and safe. This one started at the sudden hollow cold replacing a gentle touch. The loss of warm hands, delicate vanilla scent, and the shoddy substitute of scratchy blankets and distant hymnal song.

And while the temple was not a bad place to grow up, and the priestesses were kind and gentle... they were not her mother. They did not have the same sense of rightness, the same wholeness. They did not have the power to send gentle winds to whisper and caress Zara's soul. Or the instinctual calm and peace that her mothers presence did. And to know that that peace was not just taken from her, but stolen...

Zara did not want to turn away from that chasm at the bottom of her soul. She wanted to dig deeper, and deeper.

She wanted to tear Beron apart.

Beron had hunted her mother into extinction for being a wind wielder. It was the exact kind of existence Zara had been terrified of her entire life. As the priestesses always used to say, history tends to repeat itself. And her mothers life on the run was exactly as the historic scrolls in the temple said. 

It was typical–common– in the olden days. A life of fear, fleeing, and being hunted. The only reason that wasn't happening to Zara now was because she was under Rhysands personal protection.

And while Zara remained there, there didn't seem to be a single high lord willing to push Rhys in order to get to her. In order to force her into a life like her mothers. 

All except Beron.

So the answer was simple. Beron had to go.

Zara met Azriels eyes, seeing the stark solidarity there. He wore truth teller at his side today. Despite going into the home of his brothers soon. He wore it for her.

"I'll be with you the whole time," Azriel said quietly.

Zara nodded slowly, letting the winds relinquish from their tireless pursuits. She leaned up and kissed him, her gratitude flowing through the ether unbidden. "I know."

Azriel handed her the fiery red notebook, which she tucked back into their travel russack. And when Azriel wrapped a hand around her waist, she did not falter as he winnowed them to the lawn before the townhouse in Velaris.