Storm Climb: Thornwick Academy Chronicles (System of the Witch's Eye Book 3) by Gentry Davidson

Author:Gentry Davidson [Davidson, Gentry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2026-01-11T00:00:00+00:00

The cell wasn’t empty.

Shapes moved in the compressed cloud—suggestions of form that resolved and dissolved before I could focus on them. Faces I almost recognized. Voices I almost heard. The updraft was doing what the mesocyclone had done, reaching into my mind, pulling out the things I least wanted to see.

My mother appeared first.

She stood in the clouds like she was standing on solid ground, her face the way I remembered it from before—warm, alive, untouched by the sickness that had taken her. She smiled at me, and something in my chest cracked open.

“Rowan.” Her voice was exactly right. Exactly how I remembered. “You’ve come so far.”

“You’re not real.” I said it like a mantra, a ward against the updraft’s manipulation. “You’re the storm. You’re not her.”

“Does it matter?” She stepped closer, and I could smell her perfume—lavender and something spicy, the scent that had meant safety when I was small. “I’m here. I’m proud of you. Isn’t that enough?”

“It’s not real.”

“Nothing is real in here, sweetheart. Reality is what you make it.” Her hand reached toward my face, and I flinched back. “You’ve been so strong. So brave. But you’re tired. I can see it. Why not rest? Why not let the storm carry you? You’ve done enough.”

The temptation hit harder than I expected. She was right—I was tired. Exhausted in ways that went beyond physical. The curse marks ached. My muscles screamed. Every cell in my body wanted to stop fighting, stop climbing, stop pushing against forces that seemed determined to destroy us.

Why not rest? Why not let go?

“Because they need me.”

The words came from somewhere deep, somewhere the storm couldn’t touch. I thought of Mercy’s lightning flickering against the curse. Connie’s trembling hands. Sarah’s shallow breaths. Jerrica’s silent suffering. Sable’s haunted eyes. Vesper floating in her frozen prison, waiting for rescue that might never come.

“They need me,” I said again, stronger this time. “And I don’t abandon the people who need me. Not for rest. Not for peace. Not even for you.”

My mother’s face twisted. The warmth drained away, replaced by something cold and hungry and nothing like the woman I’d loved.

“Then suffer,” the storm said with her voice. “Suffer and climb and die in the cold. It’s all the same to me.”

She dissolved into mist. The cell’s walls shuddered, and then the chaos returned—wind and ice and pressure slamming back with redoubled fury. But I was ready this time. I leaned into it, let the updraft grab me, used its own force to push higher.

The storm wanted me to break.

I refused.

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