Exhale.
She listened to his instructions, steadying herself, and inserted the key into the first cuff.
CHAPTER 28
She Was the Storm
Power.
Rushing, wonderful, mighty power crashed through River like a storm of its own making. Stole her breath before the first cuff hit the ground.
She groaned at the sheer weight of her magic, staggering backwards.
The back of her legs hit the sofa, and it held her upright as she fought against the sudden onslaught of her magic. Mere weeks had passed since she’d last felt its pull, but it felt like lifetimes.
The magic collided with her veins, slamming through her, eager to fill the void inside her.
River clenched her fists. Sweat beaded on her brow as she focused, forcing her magic to behave. She would never let it slip, never again let her power have an ounce of control.
Focusing inward, River rebuilt the dam she’d held in place for years.
Brick by brick, she forced her magic behind that wall. Already, she could feel the throbbing need of the water inside her, the storm desperate to be freed.
But she wasn’t done yet.
When River felt ready—which was a relative term, considering the stress of the situation and the fact that she needed to move as quickly as possible—she lifted the key once more. It had fallen to the ground, along with the first shackle.
She inhaled, exhaled, and repeated her actions.
This time, when the manacle fell, the rush was better and worse than before.
Better, because the prohiberis was gone. River’s lungs inflated, and it felt like she could breathe for the first time since her father’s death. It was as though she’d been living as a shell of herself, barely a person. She hadn’t even realized what she’d been missing.
Worse, because as her magic flooded her veins, the storm’s call was louder than ever. It urged her to pay attention. Insisted on it, in fact.
River couldn’t ignore its summons.
She ran to the window and wrenched it open. The air was cooler today, lacking much of the humidity that had been present during their stay here. Leaning out the window, River extended her palms, facing the sky, and removed a single brick from the dam.
Instantly, the sky darkened. Clouds rolled in, called by her power.
She inhaled. Focused. Then, she sent a rush of water from her palms to the sky. It funnelled from her, this water that was her birthright, as though she had never been separated from it.
The rain, the clouds, even the mist gathering in the air, were all a part of her. She was the storm, and the storm was her.
There was something powerful about releasing her magic.
Freeing, in a way, because even though water was rushing from River’s palm and reaching for the sky, even though she was calling rain to this desert land that was dry in the midstof the winter, her magic wasn’t ungovernable. She could feel it pulsing through her, and she knew that she could turn it off in a heartbeat if she had to. In this moment, she felt something she hadn’t often felt before.
Control.
Was this how Ryker felt every day? That he was the master of his magic, that it obeyed him, not the other way round? That he really could tell his storm to do anything, go anywhere, and it would obey?
This felt...good.
When River no longer felt like her storm was going to crush her from the inside out, she twisted her fingers. One moment, water was rushing from her hands to the sky. The next, it was gone.
The clouds dissipated as though they’d never been there, and the sun shone as she stepped back and shut the window. River chose to believe that was a sign that today would go well.