Page 60 of Spirit Storm

I hear the warning in Mica’s words, but look down and immediately regret it. “Why would you say that?”

“Why would you look down when I specifically told you not to?”

I honestly don’t know. But more importantly, I don’t care. The only thing I care about is getting to the top of this mountain.

In truth, I’m nearly dead on my feet and we’re barely a quarter of the way up. I have no idea how we’re going to make it all the way to the top. Or what we’ll say to the guardian matriarch. Or how we’ll help Violet.

One clusterfuck at a time, though, right?

I shuffle my foot sideways, pressing my palms flat against the sheer stone of the rockface. Inch by inch, foot by foot, the three of us make our way higher.

The path, if it can truly be called that, winds up the mountain face in narrow switchbacks barely wide enough for single file. The drop-off grows in height and threat with each pass we make, the long fall to the bottom something my brain won't stop calculating.

Since our last change in direction, the rock under our boots has been slick with rain that hasn't stopped. The wind is also a problem, because it’s gusting at us as if testing to see who'll lose their footing first.

Lightning cracks overhead, so close the thunder comes simultaneously, no gap for counting distance.

The storm's gotten worse. Much worse.

And that makes my heart ache with the possibility that I might not get to Violet in time.

“I’m almost to the next switchback.” Mica is about ten feet to my left and much more confident with her handholds and footing than I am. “The path is widening out a bit. I think it’s going to… Oh, cool.”

Cool? Nothing about this has been cool.

I do love how the path widens, though, and when I round the corner, I breathe a sigh of relief. “Oh, cool.”

Mica reaches for me and tugs me further onto the wide plateau. “Like I said.”

Another crack of lightning splits the sky, close enough that I smell ozone.

I wince and turn to make sure Asher is okay. “Once you get here, you’ll be good, sweetie. There’s a plateau.”

I send Birdie up a prayer of thanks when the three of us are all on solid footing. The rain is miserable, but at least it’s a warm summer rain. It could be worse.

It could be much worse.

The image of that exploded house in Emberwood flashes through my mind—debris scattered in every direction, nothing left but a single wall.

That could be Violet.

That will be Violet if we don't reach her.

The wind screams now, a constant roar that drowns out everything else. Rain comes sideways, needling into exposed skin. I'm soaked through, my hands numb and scraped up from the rock.

“Where do we go now?” Asher searches the wide plateau where the trail just stops.

Not gradually. Not with warning. We round the bend and there is nothing. Just this plateau and the sheer vertical cliff face extending upward into cloud and storm.

"Great question.” I check that he’s whole and then stare up the rockface. "There has to be a way up, doesn’t there?"

He nods. “Because giving us a path to climb all the way up here just to make us climb down would be a supremely dick move.”

I scan the cliff. "We’re not going back down. Not without Violet."

But even as I say it, I know that if we don’t find a way up, we’ll have no choice. The storm is intensifying, the lightning coming faster, the whole mountain shaking with thunder.

Violet is reaching critical mass.