Storm of Locusts (The Sixth World, #2)

by Rebecca Roanhorse

He didn’t used to do that, dress for a worst-case scenario. But things have changed. For both of us.

it occurs to me that maybe, just maybe, this is his idea of friendly.

I know the rest of the sword is four feet long, its blade forged from the raw lightning that the sun gifted to his son as a weapon. His son who was once my mentor, once the only man I ever thought I’d love. But I tricked that man, trapped him and imprisoned him in the earth. I know I didn’t have a choice, that it was either him or me. And as much as I loved him, I loved myself just a little bit more.

leave the sword where it is. It’s not meant for a simple bounty hunt. It’s too sacred, too bound in power and memories for me to take hunting with Hastiin. But one day maybe. Until then it stays put.

I smile back, but it’s not much of a smile. In fact, it feels like I’m trying to smile past the broken place in my heart.

“Just you wait, Maggie. He’ll come. Kai will come. And then maybe you’ll quit your moping.” I look up, surprised. “I thought I was doing okay.” He shakes his head. “Maybe we’ll both quit our moping.”

Even if every day starts and ends with the image of him lying dead at my feet. My last and most terrible deed, even worse than betraying my mentor. All of it eating me alive.

“Just ’cause I don’t like you much, Hoskie, doesn’t mean I don’t like women.”

“I’m the best tracker in Dinétah,” the new girl says. “He had to bring me if he wants to catch the White Locust. He didn’t have a choice.”

“Isn’t the apocalypse a little ‘been there, done that’?

Either I’m getting funnier or apocalypse jokes are low-hanging fruit.

Hastiin hates when I bring up my clan powers. Most of the time he pretends I don’t have them. The rest of the time he’s relying on me to use them to get us out of a jam. What he doesn’t seem to understand is that I can’t turn them on and off when I want to. They come on their own schedule, usually when I’m personally in danger, and leave just as abruptly when the adrenaline spike that drive them fades. “You’re not faster than a bullet,” he says, but there’s no conviction in his voice.

actually don’t know if I’m faster than a bullet. But I do know that I’m faster than the human that is holding the gun that is shooting the bullet.

“Men like him can’t be happy with living. They got to be praying for the end of the world. They thrive on death. Convince weaker men that only they can save them, but it’s all bullshit. Don’t trust those death-dealers, no matter how sweet their words. They only want to die and take you down with them.”

I don’t ask her what life-threatening trauma brought on her clan powers. Us trauma survivors try to respect each other’s boundaries. And I’m fairly impressed that she’s not hiding her powers.

“Tribal Council would probably let it go if they weren’t stockpiling explosives. Nobody wants a bunch of doomsdayers with the means to enact their madness.”

“If anything happens to me, you take care of her. She wants to be a Thirsty Boy, but the Boys won’t know what to do with her. She needs another . . . female. You’re a female.”

I watch helpless as Hastiin reaches for his niece, pulling her to the ground. Just as the arrow that was meant for Ben strikes him. Dead center through his throat.

Another arrow. Ripping through his eye. And Hastiin falls down dead at my feet.

But what has me slowing in my tracks isn’t so much her deadly technology, but the thin membranous insect wings that sprout from just below her shoulder to drape down the length of her back.

She opens her mouth, and a high humming song flows from her lips. It surrounds me, and for a moment I feel that sun-soaked warmth of late summer again, something fragile and beautiful from an idyllic childhood. But it’s a childhood that was never mine. It’s fake, something pretty that has nothing to do with me. An approximation of a perfect childhood too foreign a seduction to lure me in.

She glares at me, brown eyes shining with hate I haven’t earned.

I think I’m immune to it, but it’s obviously some kind of weapon, so I’m not taking any chances.

I’ve had enough horror in my life. I don’t want to know about other people’s horrors too.

It’s not her fault that Hastiin misled her, but I won’t be that monster for her. I can’t.

What exactly did Hastiin tell her? Do I even want to know? I want to tell her I’m not some sort of boogeyman, no matter what her uncle said.

“She slit the throat of Coyote because he double-crossed her, and she buried alive Naayéé’ Neizghání, the hero of Dinétah, even though she really loved him. She shot a powerful medicine man through the heart. So, who are you? Who are you that she won’t slit your throat? That she won’t bury you alive? Or slice off your wings inch by inch? Or cut out your tongue out to make sure you never sing again!”

I decide right then and there to clear the air with Tah and fix the rift I’ve let fester. If that means talking about Kai, so be it. It’s time I made things right between us.

“I don’t want anyone to go through what I went through, Tah. It would be better to be dead. I mean it.”

It’s a moment of weakness I resent, and more than anything, I hate that someone saw it. But I’m still holding a gun, so that helps a little.

It’s the weapon of a hero, but I’m going to have to do for now.

even though I’ve faced down gods and monsters, I’ve got nothing on a stubborn, grieving, and annoyingly righteous teenager.

I’m aware of the myriad weapons strapped to my body, making me hard to get close to, but Tah hugs me anyway.

I’ve figured out what he says in that final frame, and I know his words are meant for me. I love you. Don’t follow me. Six words. Simple words. Words that leave my heart stuttering in my chest, my breath coming short, but my feelings conflicted. Because the words don’t make sense. If he loves me, why would he tell me not to follow him? If he was going to leave, why bother to say he loved me? Kai is smart. He would know what those six words would do to me, how they would make me want to destroy worlds to reach him, how they would send me reeling toward something as terrible as hope.

“Pretty sure there’s no drinking age in the apocalypse.”

Thinking of the lecture Grace would lay on Ben if she were her normal feisty self instead of what Rissa feared her mother had become. A mother heavy with the belief that she’s lost her youngest child.

Jabs from Rissa cut deeper than I’d like to admit, but Ben’s feel more like teasing. Meant to make me laugh more than bleed.

one of those cheap buildings they built when the economy was booming and people were more worried about speed and practicality than beauty.

if there’s something not so pretty about your clan power . . .” I shrug. “It’s not going to faze me.”

“I can never tell if you’re serious,” she finally admits. “I’m always serious.”

I hand her the cloth, and she holds it up to her face. I expect her to sniff it, but she doesn’t. She licks it. Licks it again until she’s licked off all the blood. Smiles like it was sugar candy. Unexpected, but I promised not to freak, so I press my lips together and keep my word.

“Do you want to tell me how you got your clan powers?” She looks up. “Please don’t make me.” “Never,” I reassure her, part of me already regretting prying and part of me relieved she doesn’t want to share. “But if you want to talk . . .” Please don’t want to talk.

You make a great auntie.”

whoever did this wanted to be deliberately cruel. Caleb was tortured, meant as a message for whoever found him. For us, most likely. I have no doubt that whoever did this is a monster.

“If not me, then who? Who fights the evil in this world?”

“You know much of want, Battle Child. Careful it is not your undoing.”

“There are many places the sun does not reach, and darkness can be a balm to those who belong to the night.”

I just mean that when something is part of your identity for so long, even if it’s not a good thing, it’s hard to let it go. Even if maybe you should.”

Mósí said being Diné is a constant, something that cannot change. That one cannot stop being Diné, even in a place where Dinétah cannot be reached.

Like I’m something he’s considering buying. Or something he thinks he already owns.