«It will be easier inside a storm. You’ll spark then, and you’ll prove to everyone—​and especially yourself—​that you belong here.» He sounded certain, so she decided to believe him, even though he had as much experience with storms as she did—​which was none at all. Storms weren’t allowed to reach the farmlands. She’d only read about them.

By sundown, all the students and beasts were outside, milling around the practice fields. A few pairs were playing lightning relay up by the rods at the top of the school, but Mina kept her feet on the ground and watched the mountains.

The storm was coming from the north.

A few hours earlier, she’d watched the rain beasts and wind beasts with their guardians race across the blackened hills. Since then, the clouds had been gathering above the mountains. She watched them churn, darkening into purple and blue.

She wondered where the storm had come from. Professor Dano had said that all the world’s weather was connected, she remembered from one of his first lectures. So what had this storm been like on the other side of the border, before the beasts had drawn it to Alorria?

Jyx was beside her, hopping from foot to foot. “Mom and Dad took me to see a storm once. Thunder was so loud that I peed my pants.”

Mina shot her a look and wondered why she was saying this. A warning?

“I was three years old.”

Mina went back to looking at the clouds.

Pixit nosed Mina in the elbow. «Ask her if Chauda is telling the truth.»

What’s Chauda saying? she asked him.

«She says that inside storms, the rain falls sideways, the wind is so hard it can rupture your eyeballs, and the thunder will leave you deaf for seven days.» Pixit shuddered so hard that his scales clinked. Sparks flew off him like dandruff.

Out loud, Mina asked Jyx, “Could you please ask Chauda to stop teasing Pixit?”

“Oh! Is she—​sorry!” Jyx frowned, concentrating; then her expression relaxed. “Chauda said she’ll stop. It’s just that Pixit is such an easy target.”

“All the more reason she shouldn’t tease him,” Mina said softly but firmly. She laid her hand protectively on the back of Pixit’s neck.

“She didn’t mean any harm,” Jyx said. “She was just enjoying herself.”

“That doesn’t make it okay.” You don’t pick on the weaker, the smaller, the easier targets. Ever. She knew that from being a sister, from taking care of Pixit’s egg, and from every story about every heroic storm guardian she’d ever read.

Jyx stared at her, silent for a moment, then said, “You’re right.” She turned to Chauda, whose wings began to droop. Chauda swung her head toward Pixit, and Mina heard Pixit graciously accept Chauda’s apology.