“How much longer until the Crossroads?” she hissed to Fritz and Larel.
“I don’t know. I’ve only been this way once before,” Larel whispered back. Her voice was barely audible over the horses’ hooves on the stone road.
“How much longer?” Vhalla tried Elecia, the other woman glanced at her in annoyance but Vhalla gave her an unwavering stare. She’d have none of it.
“Maybe less than thirty minutes?” Elecia said.
Vhalla cursed. They wouldn’t make it. She felt it.
“My prince!” Vhalla called. Aldrik glared at her sharply for speaking out of turn, she ignored it. “We’re not going to make it if we don’t go faster.”
Seriousness furrowed his brow. “You’re sure?” he asked gravely.
Vhalla ripped off her gauntlets and stuffed them into her saddlebag. Clenching her hands into fists, she let go of the reins completely and held them in the air. Closing her eyes, Vhalla unfurled her fingers, not caring how silly it may look. The wind pushed through and around her hands, she felt the storm’s power at the end of every gust.
Her eyes snapped open. “We won’t make it!”
Elecia’s attention darted from her to Aldrik. “Aldrik, there’s no other cover but the barrier walls for the Crossroads.” Tension brought Elecia’s voice to a tremble.
Vhalla scanned the landscape around them. It was true. Sand and sand as far as the eye could see. She glanced over her shoulder. The dark spot had turned to a wall on the horizon.
“Damn it!” Aldrik spurred his horse forward again and Vhalla saw him race back to his father. For just a brief moment she saw the Emperor look back in her direction. Aldrik’s horse dropped its pace and the host sped around him as he returned to his place. Another horn blew out followed by more.
The Imperial army was in a run along the Great Imperial Way. The rumble of horses and the chorus of armor cut through the slowly increasing volume of the wind. Vhalla looked back at the sections of carts, those horses couldn’t be pushed any faster without losing their load. Foot soldiers were already being left behind as those who were mounted began to panic and push faster. She saw the roaring wall behind them, blotting out the sun ominously.
A heavy realization pulsed through her. They still weren’t going to make it. Horses wouldn’t outrun this wind. Even for a single rider it was too large and too fast. Vhalla absorbed the panicked faces of the people around her, the strained expressions of her friends.
Not a single word was said among any of the soldiers. It seemed as though she wasn’t the only one to come to the sobering awareness of their plight. It didn’t require magic to feel the ever increasing gusts that began to make men and women stumble and mounts falter. A horn blew out, a frantic pulsing sound. Everyone turned. Vhalla’s heart beat in her throat.
A swirling mass of sand and death cut from earth to sky. The wind howled and consumed everything in its path, plunging the world into darkness. It stretched out on either side of them. The storm meant to swallow them whole and was about to begin its meal with the last rider at the end of the host.
Vhalla’s saw the faces of those around her as they confronted their own mortality. Her gaze swept back until it fell on Aldrik. He had a tormented expression of frustration and desperation. Vhalla felt something pulse through her frantically; she would not let him die.
As if feeling the intensity of her attention, Aldrik’s head snapped back at her; something on her face made panic overcome him. She barely saw the movement of his lips as he was going to say something. Vhalla turned Lightning hard to the right, cutting between the legions.
They could do nothing; none of them could do anything. If she didn’t try, then it was over. Vhalla dug her heels into Lightning’s sides as she cut through the shocked expressions to the outside of the column. Somewhere, someone was calling her name.
Vhalla didn’t look back.
The wind was in her ears, it flowed through her and, despite all her fears, she did nothing to suppress it. This would not be like the last time. She would find the wind and use it to save, not to kill.
Vhalla snapped the reins. “Faster,” she demanded. “Faster!” she cried, watching the sandstorm creep toward the end of the column. Her heart threatened to burst from her chest, and Vhalla blinked the sand from her eyes.
The solders of the rear legions stared at her in shock as she ran headfirst toward the storm. There was more shouting now from behind her. Vhalla glanced back. The Black Legion was a roar calling for her. She turned her head away from them, almost at the end of the host.
The wind whipped her hair, and soon Lightning began to spook and fight her pushes to advance. Vhalla cursed at the beast, begging it to carry her just a little farther. Through her words or her heels at his sides, Lightning obliged. She cut back onto the road when the last of the legion sprinted past her in the opposite direction. Their horrified expressions were all they could give her.
Vhalla pulled hard and dismounted ungracefully, stumbling and recovering. Turning Lightning back to the host she gave him a slap on his rear—the horse needed no further urging to run from the swirling sands. The soldiers kept going.
She breathed a small sigh of relief. They needed every chance they could get. If she should fail, they needed to keep pressing on. At the very least she would buy them time. Vhalla turned and looked up at the titan of wind and sand.
And she felt very small.
Vhalla spread out her feet and planted them, bracing herself. She held out her bare hands into the wind. If she could make a storm, she could end one. Vhalla felt the wind through her fingers, she felt the currents, they were part of her—and they would answer to her.
Nothing prepared her for the impact of the storm. It was as though she was thrown from another roof and Vhalla felt her shoulders pop from the strain. Her whole body was pressed down, and her knees trembled.
Vhalla closed her eyes and grit her teeth. There was sand all around her, in her hair, in her ears, and in her nose. But it would end here, with her. She leaned into the storm, pushing back with all the force she had. In the chaos of the sand and the roar of the wind, she couldn’t open her eyes. Vhalla tried to reach outward to see if she had even managed to stop or slow the storm, but her senses were jumbled with the raw power she was trying to draw from.
The first time she cried out was when one of her fingers snapped back. The sharp and sudden pain of her bones being pulled from their joints made her focus falter—she felt the wind collapse in on her, almost losing her balance. Vhalla forced her legs to straighten, straining against the pain. Another finger went, and then her shoulder threatened to give out.
Her hands trembled and Vhalla felt herself at the edge of exhaustion. With a cry she did everything Aldrik had cautioned her against since her very first lesson with him. Vhalla threw herself into her Channel with the singular thought that this storm ended here, that it would not reach her friends—it would not reach him.
The moments that followed were a strange dichotomy of feeling, like her body was dying and her mind was being born again. Light seared at the edges of her closed eyes and flooded her senses. With an almost audible click she felt herself connect to the storm through her Channel. She felt every edge of it, understood its violent gales. It was hers now, an extension of her magic that she possessed a fragile measure of control over.