Pria started awake at a high keening slicing through her windows. She shot up, hands latching over her ears in an ineffective attempt to block out some of the sound. She stumbled out of bed, nearly jumping out of her skin when a flash of light as strong and fierce as sunlight lit up the whole sky for half a second.

After she'd gotten out of the bath, she'd gone back to the library and sorted a few more books. By that point, it was already dinner time, so she'd gone to the dining room—with no small amount of trepidation even though Rahu ended up not being there. She ate alone, making her wonder once again where Viris was, especially since there was still food waiting for her when she arrived. When she got back to her room, Sive and Geight were waiting for her with a small mountain of fine silk dresses. Sive insisted she try on every single one despite her protests that they weren't practical in the slightest. They all felt weird to her—too soft and slippery with bright colors that could make flowers envious. They'd only gotten through half the pile before Pria refused to indulge Sive anymore—it was already dark and she needed to get up early—and Sive surprisingly acquiesced. They bid her goodnight and thanked her before leaving. Geight followed after a few more minutes of excited chattering that she honestly didn't catch at all because she was so exhausted. But he left soon, too, and she promptly dropped onto her bed and fell asleep.

Now the sky was screaming.

She tried looking out her window, but it was pitch black outside. Even with her enhanced eyes, the only thing she could see was a thick blanket of clouds suffocating everything in sight. When the light flashed again, it was bright enough that she had to look away. She could almost swear that when she looked outside again, she could see shapes moving in the sky high above.

The keening sound that seemed to be coming from everywhere was getting worse. Pria gritted her teeth, smashing her hands against her head in some vain attempt to spare her ears. It was building to a full-blown screech like a hundred thousand banshees surrounding her.

What in the fates was happening?

She stumbled towards the door of her bedroom, nearly slipping on one of the discarded silk dresses. She braced herself for when she let go of one of her ears to open it, but it swung open on its own. Pria made a note to thank the tower when this was over—whatever this was.

She staggered out, tears collecting in the corner of her eyes as the pain in her head just got worse and worse. It felt like hot daggers were being jammed into her brain through her ears. She blinked and tried to orientate herself. She wasn't in the endless hall. Instead, she was in a small, dark corridor that smelled heavily of rain and dust. Ahead of her, a short flight of stairs led up to another door that rattled in its frame. She could just barely pick out the whistle of wind coming from its cracks. Another flash of light had her screwing her eyes closed with a hiss. Just like the screeching was getting louder, the flashes were getting brighter.

Was the world ending? The timing was terribly unfair if it was. Pria just started to learn magic.

She wasn't sure why the tower brought her here, but she had to trust that whatever the reason, it was so she could figure out what was going on. She could feel it, almost, like how she felt the earth. The tower was urging her on, pushing her forward. She steeled herself and forced herself to comply.

Walking up the stairs was much more difficult than it had any right to be. She finally reached the top, though, tears running down her face and feeling slightly sick to her stomach. The door didn't open this time, and Pria struggled to open it without using her hands. She managed to push the handle down with her elbow and stumble out beyond it.

She nearly fell back down the stairs at the strong buffet of wind that assailed her. She widened her stance and squinted against the biting wind.

It was the top of the tower. A small lip of brown stone rose a few inches above the roof, but that was all that stood between her and the five hundred foot sheer drop. Pria took solace in the fact that the roof of the tower was big enough to fit a large encampment—it would take more than even gusts this merciless to knock her off.

On the other side of the roof, a figure stood against the wind, a large staff grasped in their hand and robes whipping around them. It took Pria too many seconds to realize it was Rahu, outfitted in proper ascendant robes and staring up at the dark clouds blocking out the night sky.

Pria followed his line of sight and balked. There were shapes moving in the clouds, easier to make out up here. Creatures with half a dozen wings that cut through the turbulent air easily, eyes the only pinpricks of electric blue light in the black sky. It reminded Pria of the light of the weeping star.

They were all diving straight toward the tower.

Pria barely managed to keep herself from screaming. She was about to race back down the stairs and yell until the tower brought her back to her room, but she stopped. Rahu wasn't running. He raised his staff.

The screeching stopped. It didn't taper off or ease away—it was just there one moment, deafening every one of Pria's thoughts, and gone the next. She let her hands fall away, but it was too soon to feel any sort of relief. Her heart pounded as Rahu threw out his other hand to the side and curled it into a fist. The wind that attacked them shifted. She couldn't see it, but Pria could hear the gusts begin to curl around the tower like a hurricane.

Rahu snapped his fingers. An arc of light appeared from his pointer finger, stretching out in front of him. When it reached the wall of wind surrounding them, it became engulfed in flames. It was hard not to feel a terrible mixture of awe and fear, gazing up at the raging inferno spinning around them.

One of the creatures crashed through the flames, and now that there was light, Pria could actually make it out. Or at least what it looked like—she still wasn't sure what it was.

Its body was made of a dark blue ice that was beginning to melt under the searing heat of the blaze around them. Its head was a blank sphere except for its three glowing eyes, and it was framed by four wings that almost looked like they were made of clouds. They were dark gray and hazy, expanding and retracting with every flap. It had no hands or feet—instead, its limb ended in wicked points.

It skidded to a halt on the roof of the tower, the points of its limbs scouring the stone deep. Rahu didn't even turn around as the thing launched itself at his back. One of its limbs lashed out to strike the man through the middle of his back, but it stopped nearly a foot away from him, a white light shining under its point.

It stayed there for a moment, seemingly frozen in midair. Then, it shattered.

Pria could only watch as chunks of it skidded across the roof in a burst of glittering ice. It only took a few seconds before all that was left was a few meager puddles.

More of them breached the fire around them. Some of them were smaller than others and quickly melted before they could even be a threat. Others weren't made of ice at all, instead their whole bodies made of the same smokey substance as their wings. For these ones, Rahu knelt down, one hand seeking the stone of the roof. Spheres of stone rose from the tower's edge, barely as big as a fist. They hurtled through the air, striking the creatures in the chest—not that they were deterred at all by them.

Until the stones exploded into a cloud of dust, ripping through the bodies of the things, tearing them into gray shreds.

There weren't as many of them as Pria first thought—or maybe the pillar of flames was just that effective at melting them before they were even in sight. After about a dozen of the things were swiftly destroyed by Rahu's magic, the flames died away. The wind continued to whistle around them, and Pria could make out more of the things in the distance. It wasn't over.

That's when the rain began to fall. It was huge and heavy, big and cold enough to sting and drench everything in seconds. Pria's teeth began to chatter from the sudden drop in temperature.

And then, the fear was gone. Instead, Pria was angry. Furious. The rage came so quickly and so intensely that it took her a moment to realize it wasn't her anger—like the cracks in the stone earlier weren't her wounds. This was the storm raging and stretching out as far as the eye could see above the black sea.

It was wicked. Its fury only rose with every second Rahu stood against it and denied its ravaging malice. More of the creatures swooped down from the clouds, wicked limbs aimed straight at Rahu.

Rahu rose his staff again, and Pria felt that anger surge. Just as the screeching, keening started again, Rahu silenced it, and that only made the storm more furious.

Pria couldn't take it anymore. She flew back down the stairs, away from the oppressive anger and the nightmarish creatures and the single man with the power to stand against it without bowing under their terrible weight. The door at the bottom was open for her, waiting to take her back to her room, back to some semblance of safety.

She rushed inside and slammed the door shut behind her. Rain pounded at her windows, wind rattled the glass, and lightning crackled and boomed in the distance. She moved to draw the curtains shut, but when she got closer to the window, she could feel the storm's rage again. It was consuming and startling—enough that she abandoned the task and dove onto her bed. She pulled her blanket up over her head and just... tried to think.

These were the fabled storms. This was why Rahu was here. He was powerful enough to stop these—and Pria was supposed to kill him.

Should she kill him? Who would stop these storms if not him? It was hard to imagine anyone so easily accomplishing such terrible feats of magic—but maybe it wasn't anything special. Maybe all ascendants could do things like that. There had to be someone who could replace Rahu if he were to die.

There would have to be. Pria would not let herself be intimidated or deterred. It couldn't be all that impressive, if she thought about it. What had Rahu actually done?

Controlling the wind had to be storm magic. Lighting the wind on fire—weapon? The spheres of earth were undoubtedly just that—earth magic—and the way he shattered the creature had to be some combination of shield magic and something else.

That wasn't so bad. Pria could learn to do that. They were just spells. If Rahu learned to do it, Pria could too. She wasn't about to be shown up by some human.

Another, closer boom of lightning made her jump again. She gritted her teeth and threw the blanket off. She wasn't some cowering child. Rahu had been the storm ascendant for literal decades. He was still alive, and the tower was still standing. He knew what he was doing. She didn't have any reason to fear the storm.

That didn't mean she would be getting any sleep tonight with it raging right outside her windows. With a sigh, she got back up. She skirted around her room, staying as far from the windows as possible. There might not be a reason to be scared—and she definitely wasn't—but she didn't want to feel the storm's emotions. It was hard enough with just her own.

When she opened her door this time, she was in the endless hall. She let out a sigh of relief—she couldn't hear the wind or rain here. Maybe she would just take a moment here. Collect herself.

She leaned against her door and closed her eyes. She took exactly seven deep breaths before pushing herself up and getting back to business. She'd seen Rahu's power now—and she was convinced it wasn't anything daunting. She could learn to do that. She would.

The library was just as she'd left it. She would never admit it, but the bright lights in the room were calming. There weren't any windows here, but she could still hear the rain striking the stones. She pushed the thought from her mind and went back to the stack of books she'd left on the table. She could barely sense the earth around her while Rahu was constructing columns of fire. She had a lot of work to do.