A Storm of Flames and Deceit

VI. Top of the World

Eris

By the time, I strode to Nephele's chambers this morning, the enchantment I had placed on the door had worn off. Not too late to give Lev quite the burn though. In fact, he had called for a healer in the middle of the night, his entire hand blistering and red.
It wasn't punishment enough.
If he had truly intended to break into my betrothed's room, one can only guess his plan. What he had intended to do. What might have happened if I hadn't cast such a charm.
For my own sanity, I choose to believe Nephele could have stopped him. She certainly has the power to. The only point of contention is her control.
When I knock on the door, I hear her voice ring out from the other side. "Come in," she calls.
When I enter, she is sat on her bed, fully dressed, glancing between me and the door knob. I dare her to ask the question, but she refuses to give me the satisfaction.
"Ready?"
She blinks. "For?"
I chuckle. "You figured out how to shut off a few thunderstorms, and now you think we're done?"
She rolls her eyes, sliding to her feet. "My mother was quite confused as to why I was soaking wet yesterday," she informs me, slipping her arm through mine. "I wonder what she might make of it happening two days in a row."
So she hadn't told her parents that I had been helping her with control. It's smart. General Speirling's alliance was with my father alone, but I didn't need him thinking I was undermining him and his efforts to subvert his daughter. "There will be no rain today," I inform her, leading her from her rooms. "Only lightning."
I swear I see a flash of it in her eyes. Excitement. "My favorite," she smirks.
"I'm sure," I mumble under my breath. "I'm just going to need you not to electrocute me."
She purses her lips, tilting her head cutely. "Well, if you're nice to me I'll consider it," she replies, and I roll my eyes, reaching the winnowing point.
The clearing is soggy from yesterday's activities, the soil lose beneath my fine shoes. I make a face, and she snorts. "What's the matter, hot stuff? Can't handle a little bit of mud?"
I scoff. "Your power is so very, very... unclean," I inform her, and she bristles.
"Well, it's easy to be clean when your power just burns everything in its path to ash," she points out, letting go of my hand.
"You are just as capable," I remind her, pointing to an oak. "Turn that tree into dust."
She frowns. "What did that tree ever do to me?"
I groan. "It doesn't have feelings, Nephele- just do it."
"Fine," she whines, concentrating. It takes her a few seconds, but the flash of lightning comes.
"That was the wrong tree."
She scoffs. "No, I meant for it to be that one," she says, pointing at the tree that was now sizzling thirty yards from us. "That one had a fatal fungal infestation on it. It would have been dead in a few months anyway. I put it out of its misery."
I blink. "You must be joking." Why does she care?
She turns to me, affronted. "I don't joke about plant life, Eris," she crosses her arms.
I shake my head. "You and I are quite different," I mumble under my breath, and she grins.
"That's a good thing, I'm sure," she laughs. "What next? Do you want me to practice winnowing?"
I furrow my brow. "You can winnow?"
She nods. "I only had done it a handful of times before my father locked me away, but I always got where I wanted to go," she tells me. "I never did go farther than a few miles though."
If I'm recalling correctly, I believe she was locked away at thirteen. I hadn't learned how to winnow until I was maybe thirty- and that was fairly early. "How old were you the first time?"
She tilts her head, recalling. "I wanna say nine- before I bled," she answers. Extraordinary. She hadn't even been matured yet. "It's actually a funny story. I was out playing by the cliffside- my father told me not to. I misjudged the jump from one rock to another and missed it entirely, fell about thirty feet. I was laying there bleeding out on the cliffside when my father found me, followed the swell of the storm," she chuckles fondly. "He wasn't too happy, left me to die, told me if I wanted to live, I'd winnow to the healer."
I shudder. Her father could make even mine look warm. To just... leave your only daughter to die so slowly when he could've helped... I cannot imagine.
"Anyways, he winnowed away, and of course, I was sobbing like a baby. But then I remembered this tree on our estate," she grins reflectively, looking at the tree she refused to strike with lightning. "Biggest tree on the manner. I tried to climb it everyday and failed- it didn't have enough footholds," she says ruefully. "I thought about how sad I was that I'd never get to climb it, so I decided to focus all my energy into winnowing to the top of it- though it was a few miles away. Sure enough I did it, content as any nine year old to sit on the top branch and die with her head in the clouds," she laughs darkly. "Then, of course, a bee came buzzing by. I was so scared that I winnowed to the healer, right then and there. And that was that."
I blink. "Now, you must absolutely be joking with me."
She scoffs. "Would I make something that specific up?"
"How would I know? I hardly know you." I fully do not believe her. It's... impossible.
She laughs. "I'll take you to that damn tree right now and prove it to you," she sets her jaw, looking up at me.
"I did not ask you to do that-"
"Too late," she grins, taking my hand. I'm half surprised she does it. If she had only winnowed a few times for only a few miles, it's nearly a miracle that she winnowed us an island away. She shouldn't be able to do this.
But sure enough, when I peel my eyes open, I'm standing in a massive tree, clutching her hand for dear life, holding a branch in my other. It's freezing so high up, a coastal breeze chilling us from the rocky shore, the ocean churning menacingly beneath. "Yay! I did it!" She says eagerly, smiling up at me. "I half thought I was gonna winnow us into the ocean." I don't laugh with her.
Her focus catches beyond me in the way that it did, always jumping around. She drops the branch, still clutching my hand, only balancing on her feet. "See!" She points into the distance. "That's the cliff I fell off of!"
I glance at the massive cliffside, wincing. "Did you hit your head on the way down?"
She chuckles, shoving me so hard that I clench the branch with white knuckles. I turn my focus back to her. "Another thing: never use so much magic that you don't have enough to undo it," I tell her. "Do you have enough in you to winnow us home?"
She breathes out as if examining herself. "I think so," she tells me.
"Then, I hope you're right," I let go of the branch. "Or you'll have to explain to your mother why you're drenched in ocean water today."