Sarah Driver - Storm

I know I’m in for the worst earful of my life, so I clutch handfuls of bedding and get ready to beg myself blue. ‘Staying still is too hard!’ I whine. ‘I loathe it here! I miss home! You can’t blame me!’

‘Are you eight moons old?’ he demands.

I flush.

‘You of all people should know there are worse places for those without a home. Don’t be so guppy-witted.’ He reaches over and gives my leg a shake – not hard, but enough to put me in my place. ‘Can you picture how it feels to find your child gone, in the middle of a pack of angry storms, in the breath before a war? Because mark me, girl—’

‘It weren’t my—’

‘ That is what is coming. A war ! A war that I would die before seeing you caught up in!’ he yells.

Da’s only yelled at me a handful of times my whole life long, but when he does, it’s frightful cos normally he sails so easy, and suddenly he’s so mad-vexed his face is purple. The odd thing is, the frightfulness of it makes me laugh , which don’t help matters at all. Grandma used to give in much quicker when fury bit her.

‘Banish that smirk or so help me Mouse I will lock you in this chamber and you won’t even have the run of the stronghold. Then we’ll see how trapped you feel.’

I force the corners of my lips down.

‘Better.’ He sits back, pulls the band from his hair and runs his fingers through it, blue eyes flashing. ‘Gift a man a young death, you will.’

‘I’m not trying to hurt you, Da. I just can’t stay here. I don’t know how.’

‘You’d better get learning, then, hadn’t you?’

I puff up my cheeks and blow all the air out in a rush. ‘When are we gonna find the Land-Opal?’

‘Mouse.’ He folds his arms and leans closer to me. ‘What sort of a father would I be if I let you go running off into this perilous world again, when I’ve only just got you safe?’

I raise my brows. He got me safe?

He sees my look and narrows his eyes. ‘You don’t need to fret – I’m going to find the Huntress and rescue those of our Tribe who are still aboard. Then I will search for the Opal.’

A howl of hope arrows from my throat. ‘And I’ll go with you!’

He frowns. ‘No. No, you won’t.’

‘I’ll gift you a knowing for nothing,’ I hiss, tears sparking in my eyes. ‘You’re too tall, too full-grown and still too slow to be anything but a hindrance on a mission! You stick out like a sore thumb, old man. Any bad-blubber will see your hide coming from a league away.’

Finally, a laugh splutters out of his dry mouth. He grabs for me and musses my tangles into an even worse mess. ‘Listen, Bones. I’ve got a knowing for you, too.’ His voice is taut with heart-worry.

An oar-drum booms in my marrow. ‘What?’

He drops his voice to a whisper. ‘I need you to promise to keep quiet about your beast-chatter.’

Something slithers in my gut when I see the fright stretching his eyes. It’s the first time Da’s told me to hide anything, and the oddness of it bites like a ray. ‘Why?’

‘Just . . . trust me. Alright? These folks don’t know you like your own Tribe. They may not understand your blood-wildness like we do.’

I frown, thinking back to how Coati looked at me before I fainted on the Sneaking. The way he called me a chatterer , like his tongue was wrapped in poison.

Da leans down and presses his forehead to mine. ‘Keep your brother safe ’til my return.’

I chew my tongue to keep from hurling curses. Cos I remember what happened when I parted with Sparrow after a frightful row where I said I hated him. Now I always wanna part with my kin on good terms. So all I do is nod. ‘Come back safe, Da. Don’t be long.’

‘I swear it.’

He limps towards the door, and a rock swells in my throat that I have to fight and fight to swallow down. My mind fills with a picture of him with ice crackling in his yellow brows, his sea-eyes sweeping vast plains of land. May the sea-gods swim close to you , I pray, laying my weary head back on my pillow.

I fall into a fitful doze. When I wake in the glow of the dying fire, my brother crouches at the end of my bed, humped like a bowhead whale and draped in a thick grey bed-fur. I croak out a startled yell but he don’t look up. His moonsprite Thunderbolt sits in his hair, a paling slip of silver. Sparrow’s song is a husked whisper under his sticky, blue-lipped breath. He’s staring at something on the blanket. Sparrow lost his sight after the worst shaking fit I ever saw, at the same time as a great storm at sea. Now he can see hazy shapes and colours, and things like Thunderbolt’s light help his eyes work better. But in other ways, he sees better than anyone. He glimpses the future in visions that leave him frighted breathless. Sky Elders say he is gifted with True Sight.

Last time Sparrow had a vision was the day Axe-Thrower attacked me. He told it to me after we’d both been taken for healing in the sawbones’ nest, and as he spoke I saw that, under his tunic, his muscles still twitched.

‘I saw you ,’ he said, eyes blackened by exhaustion. ‘On a carriage pulled by polar dogs, past a beach of white stones in the shape of eggs. A place where—’ He started to cry, lightning webbing his fingers. ‘Sea-gods die, and there are so many polar dogs, with blood on their teeth. There were doors of ice, covered in reindeer fur. You got shoved through them. Then I woke up.’ He shuddered with his whole body, like someone swam over his grave.

Thunderbolt chitters softly at me, bringing me back into the here and now. Black-Hair better now? Thunderbolt fretful for Black-Hair!

Heart-thanks, Thunderbolt! Aye. I’m better now.

Her frail voice and thin light make me look at her more closely than I have for a while. Gods! With everything that’s been happening, I barely thought that if the other sprites need moonlight, so does she. Come back with that Opal soon, Da , I pray.

The middle of my bed is aglow with purple, the light from Sparrow’s lightning that webs between his fingers.

‘What are you—’

‘Shh!’ he says, face screwed up with determination.

‘Don’t you shh me!’

He ignores me. He prods something lying on the bedsheets. I step closer. It’s a dead frog, stretched out on its back.

I sigh. ‘You don’t have to fry your own frog for breakfast, too-soon. Things ent that bad.’ Yet.

‘I just made a thing happen,’ he whines, lightning flaring. ‘And now you’re distracting me!’

I pull a face. ‘What?’

‘The frog’s leg just moved!’

I roll my eyes. ‘That beast’s stone dead.’

He shakes his head, still not looking up. ‘I ent ready yet – my lightning went into a skinny thread. I want to make it do it again.’

Sparrow reaches down to lift the limp body of the frog. Purple light pulses through it.

He flexes his fingers, dropping a splodge of purple that fizzles on the sheet until I lunge forwards to smother it. Then he flicks a small lightning bolt into the frog’s chest. He draws back, breathing hard through his mouth. Then he yells, ‘Why won’t it do it again?’

I try to distract him. ‘Ent you heart-glad I’m better?’

Finally, he looks. ‘Aye,’ he says doubtfully, with a half-shrug. ‘You passed out cold, dint you?’

I press my lips thin. ‘I’m strong as ever I was,’ I tell him, hating the thought that folks might think me weak.

‘Mouse?’ calls a bright, hesitant voice outside the door, making my skin jump.