The Young Elites by Marie Lu

Your Highness,” she says to Enzo.
    My breathing is too rapid.
Calm down. Focus.
But the force of the last attack has left me trembling, and the anticipation of what might come next sends prickles of terror down my skin. Spider has the power to see in complete darkness. What can the Windwalker do? Fly, perhaps?
    Then—a piercing scream shatters my senses. I flinch. My hands fly to my ears in a vain attempt to shut out the sound, but it only grows worse. The sound destroys everything around me, turning the world into blinding streaks of red and piercing every corner of my mind. I can’t see. I can’t think. It goes on and on, a razor-sharp knife digging into my ears. I must be bleeding. I feel the dull sensation of cold stone against my skin. Tears stream down my cheeks.
I’ve fallen,
I realize dully.
    Something stirs faintly in the depths of my body, but I reach out for it and miss. What kind of power is this? How do I fight it?
How do you shut out a scream that comes from inside your mind?
I try to struggle to my feet, but the scream overwhelms me. It ripples through the air again and again, threatening to drown me.
    Somehow, through the chaos, I hear Windwalker’s voice against my ear. It sounds like she’s right beside me. When I jerk my head to the side, I see her.
    She laughs. “Watch your step, little wolf,” she taunts.
    Suddenly I feel myself lifted off the ground by an invisible curtain of wind. Windwalker’s arms are stretched out in my direction. She lifts me higher, then makes a cutting gesture with one hand. Wind rushes past my ears—I fly across the chamber. My back hits the wall hard. I crumple to the ground like a broken doll. All around me, the screaming continues.
    I can’t do this.
I curl into a ball as Windwalker comes closer. She kneels before me—all I can make out of her now is her sly smile. The scream in my mind is shattering my soul, and the pain of being thrown makes my breath short. The scream sounds like my own. I see myself being dragged through the rain by my hair, my father’s face staring straight into mine. Behind us, Violetta screams at him to stop. He ignores her.
    I can’t take it anymore. My anger rises—I reach for the energy just out of my grasp. My father’s ghost hovers before me, and my sister’s shrieks surround us. Disoriented, I let out a strangled cry and claw at the open air.
    My hand strikes something. Suddenly the shrieks around me stop, and my father and sister vanish. This time, I don’t hear any more snickers. To my shock, Windwalker is hunched several feet away, holding her neck. A thin trickle of blood runs down her hand where I’d raked her with my fingernails. With a start, I realize that I must have struck her when I thought I was striking at my father. The rage inside me still churns, a black, seething fury, almost within my reach.
    I grit my teeth at her. “Is that it?” I suddenly snap. “Attacking me while I’m defenseless?”
    Windwalker stares at me in silence. Then she removes her hand to show me the gash I’ve caused. “You’re far from defenseless.” Several thin lines are scored into the skin of her throat. Without a word, she walks over and helps me onto my trembling feet. “Not too bad,” she says, without a hint of malice in her voice. “You like being provoked. I can tell.”
    Gradually, my anger fades into bewilderment. Did she just compliment me? “What,” I manage to say, “is your power, exactly?”
    She laughs at my expression. She seems completely unconcerned about her scratched neck and is, somehow, friendlier to me. “Whatever the wind can do—whistle, scream, howl, uproot you from the earth—I can do too.”
    She leaves me. All around the cavern, the others whisper among themselves, their voices echoing in the empty space. Finally, Enzo steps forward, his hands folded calmly behind his back.
    “Better.” He tightens his lips. “But not enough.”
    I wait there, swaying on my feet, regaining my breath. His