Grounding the Storm ✓

Chapter 4

The residents of Arego are screaming. I hear them as soon as I burst through the front door, following Celestine and my parents. The dark clouds splotch out any moonlight thus all I perceive are the shadows of buildings, running figures, and smoke. Endless amounts of smoke. They're burning the village, one building at a time.

Flames roar against the night sky and rise to meet those dark clouds rumbling so loud with thunder I can scarcely hear my own thoughts. The ground shakes with every boom, trembling the solid surface underneath my boots. I whirl, aiming to gather anything to tell me who and what is attacking.

My heart hurries in my chest. Someone attempting to flee the attackers bumps into me from behind and persists in the opposite direction. No apologies, not tonight. Not when our entire world is crumbling.

Already, witches of water are struggling to put out the flames rising higher and higher with every second. One after the other, the buildings are engulfed until the heat on my back is scorching and my father drags me away, into the middle of the street, and away from our own home—now swallowed by those blazes. There's no way to stop it—I watch as my home is taken away from me with nowhere to run.

My father grips my arm. "Get your sister somewhere safe. Once she's secure, get to the edge of the village. We might need you," he orders. I nod but his words are rattling around in my skull and refusing to settle.

What did he say? What do I have to do? I've never been needed. Celestine has always been told, ordered, and knew what needed to happen. I don't have that luxury.

"Be safe," my mother tells us as she's dragged away by my father. She watches us as she goes, studying our faces and the way we stand there, frozen in shock. When I'm ready to reach for her and follow, she turns and my father places a hand on her back to move faster.

A crack of lightning cleaves across the sky and strikes a building one street over. Debris flies into the air and I push Celestine down with a hand over my head. Someone screams. An infant wails in the distance.

Water witches are running through the streets, dulling the flame before another one sprouts to life at the hands of whatever witch is currently ruining this beautiful, innocent place. Bren. Where is Bren?

"What do we do?" I ask frantically.

"We do as father said. We need to find a hiding place," Celestine responds evenly.

Without my sister, I might crumble into a ball and rock myself—waiting for this to be over. This is the worst attack Arego, my home, has ever faced and witnessing this place I grew up in swallowed by the flames is enough to make me want to vomit.

"The community kitchens." I grab her hand and pull her in that direction but at the second I do so, the stone building housing the community kitchens two streets over shatters as lightning strikes down onto the wooden roof. Sparks fly and flames rise from the building once standing, now reduced to a stormed rubble.

That's out of the question.

Tears prick at my eyes. I don't want to do this. I don't want to be here. My parents had to leave to command the defense but I need them here, more than anything, I want them at my side.

I'm about to lose all sense of control but a familiar figure runs around a building at the same time lightning cleaves across the sky. A choked sob escapes my throat as Bren runs to us, frantically throwing glances behind his shoulder.

"Move, move, move," he orders. He pushes us in the opposite direction and into the darkness between two buildings, on the opposite side of the street of our home. I have to watch the window to my bedroom spark with fire and all of our belongings turn to ash as Bren pushes down onto my shoulder so we look like nothing more than trampled piles of trash.