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Synopsis

Jin-Lu should be happy. Princess Yi-Nereen of Kerina Rut and Prince Kadrin of Kerina Sol have reunited after twelve long years, having survived a near-apocalypse. They are safe and in love--thanks to Jin--and they want her to join them for their upcoming nuptials in Kerina Sol.

But their happy ending came at the cost of Jin's.

Jin lost everything in the fallout of saving the world. Now she's Talentless, scrabbling to eke out a living in the lowest echelons of society. All she wants is to be left alone with her shameful secret, but the storms that sweep the wastes have other plans.

When refugees from a fallen city flood into Kerina Sol, the delicate balance between Talented and Talentless shatters. With tensions rising and civil war looming, Yi-Nereen, Kadrin, and Jin must join forces again to save their own people and the refugees.

Now their salvation lies beyond the wastes, in the mythical home of the gods: the First City

Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

FIRST HOUR OF THE STORM

Observation #520: Storm prediction is a frustrating, imprecise science. Nature always follows a pattern, but this one evades me.

Hypothesis: No true randomness in nature. Storms artificial? --O

Third Age of Storms, 1st Summer, Day 63

Kerina Sol -- House of Steel Heavens

Deep in a dream, Yi-Nereen floated through the streets of Kerina Rut in a palanquin. Her city hummed around her; temple bells rang out, deep and sonorous. It was worship day. She was on her way to light bowls of fragrant oil and make her sacrifices to Rasvel, the Giver of Blessings.

The crowd outside her palanquin was unruly. She glimpsed faces contorted with anger, heard voices rising in a muted roar. What were they saying? It was like they were speaking a different language. Her people needed something from her, but she couldn't understand what it was.

The low, musical sound of the bells climbed higher, frantic, stirring panic in Yi-Nereen's blood. Her palanquin bearers struggled to make headway through the crowd. The platform jerked and tipped--Yi-Nereen tried to scream, but her voice was gone.

The bells! They were tearing through her head.

Now her people were swarming her fallen palanquin, shouting and reaching for her. They were going to tear her apart.

And she still didn't know why.

Yi-Nereen opened her eyes, a gasp caught in her throat. Moonlight bled through a crack in the drawn curtains of her bedchamber, painting the furniture in shades of soft gray. It came back to her in a dizzying rush: she was lying abed in the House of Steel Heavens. In Kadrin's home, far from the streets of Kerina Rut.

But the bells went on ringing. Those were real.

In Kerina Rut, she had been trained to fly from bed the instant the storm bells chimed their first note, ready to serve before she was fully conscious. But Yi-Nereen wasn't yet accustomed to Kerina Sol's storm bells; their timbre was different from the ones she'd been conditioned since childhood to obey. It was like dancing to a familiar tune and finding the chorus had changed. Her body stumbled over the missing steps.

Get hold of yourself. It was likely just another drill.

All they'd had in Kerina Sol for the past month were drills. The city had been in the grip of a bizarre storm-drought ever since the Second Storm of Centuries had torn through the city's shield and destroyed two districts. Most people were grateful for the reprieve. Rasvel's Mercy, they called it.

Yi-Nereen found it chilling. She was one of only three people in Kerina Sol who knew the truth about the Second Storm of Centuries. She had been the storm, its fury embodied, and she'd come within a hair's breadth of destroying everything.

She'd learned to never trust good news. A reckoning was coming; she felt the certainty of its approach in her teeth, in her bones.

Yi-Nereen dressed quickly. The whole point of a drill was to act as if it were real. No time for ornaments, makeup, or even to comb her hair; she slept in braids so she would be ready at a moment's notice. In Kerina Rut, an untimely arrival at her post would have meant a beating--after the storm was over, of course.

Opening the door to the hallway, she blinked against a sudden flare of candlelight.

Kadrin. He'd had no more time to rouse himself than she had, and he looked it. His hair was a dark mop of curls, rumpled from sleep, and he'd tied his robe too hastily; it gaped open, revealing an unseemly triangle of skin. Yi-Nereen averted her eyes. Her heart drummed in her chest.

A month of living under the same roof as Kadrin, and she still wasn't used to it.

"Reena. I was coming to wake you. Can I walk you to the Wall?"

Yi-Nereen nearly shivered. If a voice could sound half-dressed, in this moment Kadrin's did. It was a far cry from the way he spoke to her in the daylight with his parents and siblings watching: bright, warm but proper, respectful and a touch distant. They were so rarely permitted to be alone together, now that Kadrin's mother was making official arrangements for their wedding.

Wedding. Just the thought of that word made Yi-Nereen's stomach swoop, and not in an altogether pleasant way.

"If you wish," she said, trying to sound casual, as if walking through the streets with Kadrin in the middle of the night were of no great consequence--as if she were used to going where she liked at any hour, with no escort at all, a free woman of Kerina Sol.

She hardly felt free at all. Quite the opposite. She felt bound, tongue-tied by all she wanted to say and couldn't find words to express. Perhaps it would be easier to write them down. But wasn't it ridiculous, the idea of writing a letter to a man whose house she lived in?

They walked through the dark, hushed halls of the House together, a handspan apart. Close enough for Yi-Nereen to feel Kadrin's warmth, but not touching. She thought of taking his arm. But part of her balked, unwilling to risk shattering whatever fragile balance existed between them.

They'd kissed exactly once, on the balcony of a castle trembling in a storm. It had felt like a beginning, a prelude to the life Yi-Nereen had always longed for but never allowed herself to contemplate. But in the weeks since that kiss, Yi-Nereen had come to doubt everything. This new life of hers felt hollow, incomplete.

She knew exactly what was missing--or rather, who--but what could she do about it?

Yi-Nereen stepped over the House's threshold and tensed.

"It isn't a drill," she said.

The storm bells went on clanging, louder than ever. Kadrin frowned up at the dark sky. "How can you tell?"

"I just can."

The air felt charged and sharp; the hair on Yi-Nereen's arms stood on end. She could taste the approaching storm on the wind. It felt closer than it should. Had the stormwatchers given less warning than usual?

Kadrin was Talentless. He didn't have the connection to the storms that a shieldcaster or a sparkrider had; he couldn't sense them coming until they were upon him. Yi-Nereen's skin crawled at the thought, but she chastised herself for it. She had to unlearn the prejudices Kerina Rut had instilled in her, even the ones that were unconscious. Especially those.

"I need to get to the Wall," she said. "Quickly. Go inside, Kadrin."

She didn't wait to see whether he would do as she asked. Her assigned post was on the sector of Wall around Orchard District, seven minutes away from the House at a flat run. From the acrid, electric taste of the air on her tongue, Yi-Nereen sensed the storm would be here sooner than that.

By the time she reached the Wall, puffing hard, a stitch burning in her side, the shieldcasters had already raised the dome without her. The sky glowed blue; the city fell still, like the kerina was holding its breath. The bells had stopped.

Kerina Sol's Wall was a raised stone walkway that encircled the city, connecting the barbettes: circular platforms, one per district, where shieldcasters positioned themselves in a storm to raise the dome over the city. Three shieldcasters stood atop Orchard District's barbette, arms outstretched as they poured power into the shield. Yi-Nereen joined the two reserves seated behind them, a man and a woman who cast her sidelong glances but said nothing of her lateness. Yi-Nereen wished they would. She had an excuse--the House of Steel Heavens was located deep within the city, instead of close to the Wall like the compounds where the other shieldcasters lived--but she wouldn't have minded a light scolding.

In Kerina Rut, she'd served in the Shield Corps alongside her kin: a stable of uncles and aunts, cousins and nieces and nephews. All of them had the Shield Lord's ear, and so Yi-Nereen could trust none of them. Any stray word of hers could be twisted into something unbecoming of a First Daughter, a mark against her marriage prospects; it was safer to keep her lips sealed.

For as long as a storm lasted, all the shieldcasters were prisoners sentenced to the same fate, yet Yi-Nereen had always stood uniquely alone.

She'd hoped Kerina Sol would be different--that the shieldcasters here could be her confidantes, perhaps even her friends. But so far, they'd held her at arm's length. That was to be expected, Yi-Nereen knew. She was an outsider, the sole Rut-blood among their ranks.

"Couldn't last forever," the man next to her said. He was the older of the two reserves, bald but with enough gray streaks in his beard to mark him for nearing the end of his half-life. "The storms had to come back eventually. At least we're useful again, eh?"

The other reserve scoffed. She wore her hair in a short, shaggy cut that reminded Yi-Nereen painfully of--someone else's. "So much for Rasvel's Mercy. The Giver decided we were growing lazy, I suppose. A shame. I rather liked all the extra sleep."

Yi-Nereen racked her brain for their names: Brisen and Sofia. She'd listened to their banter for over a dozen drills, but never found the bravery to join in. Her isolated upbringing in the Tower had ill-prepared her for living among the loquacious, irreverent people of Kerina Sol. A comment like Sofia's would have bordered on blasphemy in Kerina Rut.

The storm was almost upon the city now. She heard its low, inconstant shriek beyond the shimmering blue barrier surrounding the ramparts. It pounded in her ears like blood. When Yi-Nereen closed her eyes, she found herself reliving memories: her own hand reaching through the storm to crush Kerina Sol's defenders and fall upon the helpless city like a predator swooping in for the kill.

She'd never felt so powerful. So blissful and unafraid. She craved that feeling again, hungered for it with an intensity that frightened and sickened her.

"You all right, Princess?"

Brisen and Sofia were looking at her. Yi-Nereen's hands were twisting in her lap; her face was cold and clammy. She tried to smile. "Oh, I'm fine--"

Thunder drowned her voice. The sky flashed white, bright enough to make Yi-Nereen flinch.

Good. She should fear the storm, not herself. Never again would she taste the might Tibius Vann had bestowed upon her, and thank the gods for that. No one could be trusted with such power.

It happened so quickly she almost didn't see it. One of the shieldcasters holding the dome collapsed. The woman's legs buckled and she sagged forward, stumbling over the parapet.

"Tela!"

Brisen dove for her. Yi-Nereen was a moment behind him. Together they pulled Tela down by the waist, back onto the safety of the Wall. The woman lay senseless on the stone, eyes rolled back in her skull. Yi-Nereen fumbled for a pulse in her neck and found one--thank Rasvel.

The other two shieldcasters hadn't so much as flinched. They stood in place, arms raised, blue tendrils streaming from their fingers into the shimmering dome. Yi-Nereen glanced at Brisen, who was crouched beside Tela's limp form.

"Go," he said. "I've got her."

Yi-Nereen straightened--but Sofia shouldered past her. "Let me." She took the spot between the two active shieldcasters before Yi-Nereen could argue.

Yi-Nereen had been the strongest shieldcaster in Kerina Rut, the product of a line of carefully bred Talent. She had tasted ambrosia and cast a shield so massive it could encompass an entire storm, shape it to her will. Now she'd been shoved aside by a Sol-blood woman who didn't trust her to hold rank. Treated like a novice.

They didn't know her, Yi-Nereen reminded herself. She'd have to prove her worth. After a month of drills, now was her chance.

"Rasvel have mercy," Brisen said, his voice flat with horror. "Curing District."

Yi-Nereen followed his gaze up and westward. A fissure had formed in the dome, like water parting around a rock. It could give at any moment, allowing the storm to roar in like a flood. Yi-Nereen knew the signs; she had seen a handful of dome failures in Kerina Rut. The shieldcasters could regroup and raise the dome again. But lives would be lost.

"Someone in that sector must have collapsed," Yi-Nereen said, though she doubted her own words. Even in Kerina Rut, with its dangerously undermanned Shield Corps, she'd never seen a shieldcaster collapse in the first hour of a storm. Tela could have been suffering from some ailment that weakened her, but the odds of another shieldcaster dropping at the same time were low.

"There was something different about that lightning strike," Brisen said. "I felt it. This isn't a normal storm. Listen."

Yi-Nereen willed her thundering heart to calm so she could hear the wind beyond the dome. Did it sound different? She couldn't tell. But she thought of that sense she'd had lately of a reckoning waiting in the wings, its hot breath on her neck.

It was here. Now. The realization washed over her in a chilling wave.

"Curing was short a shieldcaster," Brisen said. "They only had two reserves. Oh gods, if Tela wasn't the only one... If the dome fails and there's another strike like that--"

"I'll go to Curing," Yi-Nereen said. "They need reinforcement."

Brisen shook his head. "We're both staying right here until orders come. Shield Lord Tethris will handle redistricting. She'll send out novitiates if she has to."

"Curing doesn't have time to wait for novitiates!"

Brisen didn't understand. Kerina Sol was flush with Talent; he'd never faced a storm with half the complement of shieldcasters he needed to survive it, praying for Rasvel's mercy the whole dark night long.

If the Second Storm of Centuries had caused this, she had caused this. So it fell to her to make amends. She wouldn't allow Kerina Sol to be destroyed.

"Princess, wait--"

Yi-Nereen took off running.

The architects of Kerina Sol deserved a thousand humiliations for the inefficiency of the city's design: a sprawling honeycomb of districts all contained by a single outer Wall. Yi-Nereen cursed them all as she ran. She shouldn't have to circumnavigate the city to reach a district in trouble; it was a waste of precious time.

Her home, Kerina Rut, was built in the shape of a wheel: a central tower with raised spokes of Wall radiating outward, dividing the city into pie-shaped districts. Yi-Nereen usually served out a storm in the Tower of Arrested Stars itself. Her father rarely trusted her on the outer Wall, as if Yi-Nereen could find some opportunity for mischief while she was pouring all her blood and sweat into keeping her city safe.

She cursed him, too, for good measure.

Curing District was two sectors over from Orchard. Yi-Nereen ran through Jade District's barbette on the way without sparing a word for the shieldcasters there. Three of them standing, still--good. But a man lay slumped against the parapet, gasping for breath, and Yi-Nereen saw only a single reserve crouched beside him. Where was the other?

Her heart beat a fearful staccato against her ribs. The storm had barely begun. How much worse could it get?

Yi-Nereen stumbled onto Curing District's barbette. "I'm here!"

Three bodies in blue robes lay unconscious on the ramparts, scattered like dolls. Two shieldcasters still stood. "Who's that?" one of them demanded.

He couldn't see her, Yi-Nereen realized; he'd gone shield-blind, his vision darkened by the strain of holding a collapsing shield.

"Yi-Nereen. From Orchard."

The sound of her name--obviously Rut-blood--sank in the air between them like a stone.

"You shouldn't be here," he snapped. "Go back to your post. We don't need--"

Thunder roared. A blinding white flash filled the air. Yi-Nereen blinked furiously, hands over her ears, trying to restore her vision.

The man who'd spoken was gone. Gone. Over the parapet, just like Tela would have been if Brisen hadn't caught her.

"What's happening?" the other shieldcaster wailed. Her shoulders buckled, like someone had heaped a sack of bricks on her back. The blue light streaming from her fingers flickered. "I can't--I can't see--"

"Steady!" Yi-Nereen shouted. "I'm with you!"

She stepped up to the parapet, threw out her arms, and burned mana.

The weight of the shield crashed down on her. It was fire and ice, burning a trail through her veins. Her mind surged beyond her skin, out into the dome. At once, she felt every slash of wind and flung pebble as if her own flesh were under assault. But she wasn't one person anymore, trembling and vulnerable in the storm.

She was every shieldcaster who stood atop the Wall. Her strength was theirs, and theirs was hers. We will hold.

Her fear faded, erased by a lifetime of discipline. Under her dome slept an entire city of souls. No harm would befall them under her watch.

She was their shield and she would not break.

Yi-Nereen was still conscious when the storm ended, but only just.

Reinforcements arrived eventually, but they were barely trained novitiates. Just children, really. Yi-Nereen refused to let any of them replace her. Brisen was right; this storm was different, deadlier. If she had a choice, she would have borne its cost all on her own.

She stood, hour after hour, pouring herself into the shield while volunteers brought her fresh mana to infuse. Until finally the wind calmed and the dust receded. The storm had passed; now it moved east.

The moment the dome dropped, so did Yi-Nereen. She lay down right there on the stone tiles and closed her eyes. Her arms were leaden weights, her skull stuffed with cotton. Breathe, she told herself. It's over.

"Bravo," came a voice from above her. "What a show."

Yi-Nereen forced her eyes open. The bony, angular face of Shield Lord Tethris swam into view above her. If Yi-Nereen hadn't recognized her on sight, the stars adorning her midnight-blue robes would have signaled her station.

"Where did you come from?" Yi-Nereen's exhaustion precluded politeness. Tethris was her distant cousin anyway, and she was finished with paying respects to her kin.

"I've been standing beside you for the past hour. You were too busy playing heroine to notice."

"What?"

"I assigned you a post for a reason, Yi-Nereen. If I don't know where my shieldcasters are, how am I meant to field reinforcements? Every man, woman, and child under my command knows better than to leave their post. Except one."

With a soft groan, Yi-Nereen pushed herself into a sitting position. Every muscle ached. She didn't have the stomach for this conversation, but she had little choice.

"The dome on this sector was about to crack. I made a decision--"

"If the dome cracks," Tethris said, "I handle it."

How many times had Yi-Nereen begged forgiveness for an error, even when she didn't truly believe she'd been wrong? In their crueler moments, her father and brothers had made a sport of breaking her. They'd perfected a whole host of techniques for making her doubt herself, pushing and pushing until they were satisfied her tears of remorse were genuine.

Part of Yi-Nereen knew that Tethris wasn't like that. In this instance, perhaps she was even right--perhaps Yi-Nereen owed her an apology.

Yi-Nereen would spit blood before she groveled in front of someone again.

"Why were only two reserves assigned to this sector?" Yi-Nereen asked coldly.

Tethris stiffened. "What?"

"You had access to reinforcements. Why weren't they posted on the barbette to begin with? If Curing had a full complement of shieldcasters, the dome would never have splintered and I would have had no reason to leave my post."

Out of the corner of her eye, Yi-Nereen saw movement. Someone had just climbed onto the barbette behind Shield Lord Tethris. Kadrin. He stood there, chest heaving, his hair lank with sweat. The relieved smile that split his face faded as Yi-Nereen spoke.

Stop this, she told herself desperately, stop. But her tongue had a mind of its own.

"This was a failure in leadership. Your mistake. Not mine."

Tethris's stare was flinty. "You're on leave," she said. "Two weeks. I don't want to see you on the Wall again until after you're wed. Perhaps by then, you'll have adjusted yourself to our customs. Your father may have tolerated your disrespect, but I certainly won't."

For one all-consuming moment, Yi-Nereen wanted nothing more than to shove Tethris from the ramparts and watch her fall, screaming, into the wastes below. Her father. How dare Tethris mention her father.

"Reena."

She flinched at the touch of a hand on her shoulder. It was Kadrin, gently guiding her from the ramparts.

"Come, let's go home."

Yi-Nereen was trembling, and Kadrin was warm, solid, and steady. He smelled like earth and bread. Part of her longed desperately to fall into his arms and sob away her rage and frustration. Another part wanted to push him violently away--to preempt the day when he would surely come to his senses and see her for what she truly was: a senseless, broken thing, a tangled mass of thorns that could only draw blood if he touched her.

It was why Jin had left. Yi-Nereen was sure of it.

"I heard what happened," Kadrin said as they limped slowly through the dark streets. "The shieldcasters who collapsed. I couldn't sleep a wink until I knew you weren't one of the dead."

"Dead?" The word wrenched itself from Yi-Nereen's throat. But of course. The shieldcaster who'd fallen over the parapet when she'd arrived in Curing District couldn't have survived.

One of the dead. That meant there were more.

Yi-Nereen stole a glance at Kadrin. There was a distant, glazed quality to his eyes, like he was reliving a waking nightmare. "One dead in Orchard District," he said quietly. "They couldn't give me a name, so I ran as fast as I could to the Wall. To your post. You weren't there, Reena. I... I thought..."

His voice tore at her, but her heart hammered for a different reason. "Someone died in Orchard?"

"A reserve whose heart gave out in the third hour. He was older, close to his half-life." Kadrin let out a rattling sigh. "It could have happened in any storm, but everyone's saying this one was different. Did you know him? Reena?"

He stopped walking, because Yi-Nereen had frozen in place.

Brisen. She'd left him with three other shieldcasters still standing. She'd thought him safe.

He'd joked about being useful again, after a month of drills. He'd noticed Yi-Nereen's silent horror at her own thoughts and asked if she was all right. When Tela fell, he'd been so swift to catch her.

He'd called after Yi-Nereen as she left, warning her not to go.

Yi-Nereen's head pounded. She had to fix this. But the only way to make amends for a death was to ensure it never happened again. How?

After tonight, she was certain of one thing: the Second Storm of Centuries had seemingly launched the wasteland into a new age of storms, even deadlier than the last. Even Kerina Sol's profusion of Talent wasn't enough to safeguard them any longer.

Yi-Nereen's treatise--only half-reconstructed a month after Falka had flung her research from the peak of Mount Vetelu--might succeed in repairing the bloodlines, but by then it would be too late.

Her thoughts whirled, caught in a windstorm. I must save them. Save them all. I must--I must--

Kadrin gazed at her, brow furrowed, then turned his face toward the blush of pink growing in the eastern sky. "I wonder if she's out there. Running from the storm."

Yi-Nereen felt a hand close around her heart, her thoughts scattering like ashes. She and Kadrin never said Jin's name anymore. But she was always there. Standing in the space between them, leaning against doorways and lurking in Yi-Nereen's dreams, a mana-cig between her lips and hands scarred with old burns.

Oh, they'd tried to find her. Kadrin had even posted false notices of courier work, hoping to lure Jin to a meeting so they could talk. He'd had the romantic notion that if only all three of them could sit down together, he and Yi-Nereen could convince Jin to be in their lives, in whatever role she wanted to play. But Jin had seemingly left Kerina Sol altogether.

Even Jin's mother, who worked in the House's kitchen now, claimed not to know where Jin was. She'd sounded distraught enough that Yi-Nereen believed her.

"That's what a courier does," Yi-Nereen said. "It's the life she wants."

But she never dreamed about Jin flying over the dunes on her bike anymore. Those had been good dreams, fantasies to comfort Yi-Nereen when she was a prisoner in her father's tower.

She had different dreams now. Darker ones.

Last night, Jin had been in the crowd outside her palanquin. But while everyone else was tearing through the wreckage, howling for Yi-Nereen's blood, Jin just stood in the background. Staring at her with those wounded dark eyes. As if she wanted something from Yi-Nereen, just like the screaming mob, but she'd die before she asked for it.

What do you want from me? Yi-Nereen wanted to plead.

But she was sure she'd never know.

Copyright © 2025 by Hana Lee

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