She felt a few answering nudges, tentative and wary. She sent out feelings of warmth and compassion, and a plea for courage. It was such a cruel irony how much the spirits she touched differed. Malicious and power-hungry souls gravitated toward storms naturally. They often felt they were owed something by the world they’d once lived in, and they took that payment in destruction. And the rest—they were soft, more than vulnerable, like one might expect when a person’s truest self is shoved into the harsh world without even skin and bones for armor. It was these souls she had to coax and comfort. While they had not been able to let go of their old lives enough to move on, they had done their best to adjust, settling into the seams of nature where life and death were constant and less complicated.

Aurora thought of her magic like a song—soft and soothing—and she poured it out for those souls, asking for their aid. She found one, huddled low in the earth, avoiding the storms overhead. It sent her images of fire and chaos, and she sucked in a breath.

A firestorm wreaked havoc outside. No wonder the city was in such turmoil.

She promised the spirit shelter and guidance and urged it toward her. It came, but slowly. This soul was no fighter, not like the one that inhabited the firestorm. But she did not need it to fight, she could do that. She only needed it to submit.

She had it out of the earth and almost to the palace when suddenly another soul appeared. This one came from somewhere up above, as if out of nowhere. It moved fast and needed no cajoling from her. In her surprise, she released the other soul, which immediately scurried back to its hiding spot, so she faced the newcomer in her mind’s eye.

This soul was … different. Bold, eager, but not at all childish like the skyfire storm she’d encountered in the Sangsorra desert. This soul projected a sense of duty, and she wondered if he or she had been a soldier once upon a time.

You are here to help? she sent the thought its way.

It did not send anything back, no images or words; it only rushed closer, crowding her space.

All right, then. Thank you. I promise to release you as soon as I’ve cleared the fog.

Again, it pushed closer, a sense of impatience filling her, the first real communication she had received. Definitely a soldier, she thought.

Aurora lifted up the wind Stormheart, cradling it between both her palms, then with an indrawn breath, she took hold of the spirit before her and simply drew it through the heart.