Let the Sky Fall (Sky Fall #1)(83)

What kinds of tricks has Raiden taught his warriors?

I dodge another probe and lose my footing, barely catching one end of the platform as I fall. My muscles tear, and I barely suppress my scream as my shoulder dislocates. But I haul myself up and twist into the position the Gales taught me, wrapping my arm around my chest so I can force the bone back into the joint. My hands shake, knowing it will hurt just as much going in as it did tearing out.

Three deep breaths and . . .

The howl of the winds covers my groan as white-hot pain stabs my shoulder like a burning windslicer. When I wipe the tears from my eyes, I can feel my arm working properly again.

Before I can celebrate the small victory, there’s another garbled hiss.

The winds disappear. Instantly. Like someone snapped their fingers and made a hundred winds unravel. If I hadn’t seen it myself, I wouldn’t have believed it.

I crouch again, squinting through the stirred-up sand, waiting for their next move.

One minute. Two minutes. Three minutes.

No attack.

Winds trickle back and my pulse starts to steady. Until I hear their songs.

I can’t understand any of the words.

Something is very wrong.

Gavin screeches.

My heart stops when I spot him streaking through the sky. Heading straight for me.

No. No! My mother sent him home. Why would he come back?

He circles above my windmill, and I try to transmit a desperate warning: Go. Away. Now.

Instead, he screeches again and dives, landing on my shoulder.

My windmill explodes.

The turbine splits in half, the metal peeling like it’s made of paper. Gavin flaps away as I fall through a shower of shrapnel, shielding my eyes with one arm and reaching for a draft with the other. Most of the winds feel wrong—broken—and refuse to acknowledge my call. But my fingertips reach a usable Southerly and I command it to catch me.

The ruined drafts scrape against my skin like dull blades as I float a few feet above the ground. I sink deeper into the strands of the Southerly to shield my face.

What are they doing to the winds?

It’s hard to see with all the sand swirling through the air, but I catch a glimpse of Vane’s blue sweatshirt stumbling toward me, not even attempting to stay out of sight.

“Duck,” I shout as another wind spike blasts a windmill directly in front of him, spraying him with metal debris.

The heavy pillar cracks and wobbles, tipping toward Vane.

I scream as he scrambles away seconds before the steel pole crushes the ground. Another windmill explodes next to him, and he dives to the sand and misses most of the shrapnel.

I order my Southerly to drop me near Vane, but another wind spike whooshes toward me and I barely manage to duck. The force spins me into a windmill and stars flash in front of my eyes as my head cracks against the metal. The pain breaks my concentration, and the wind holding me streaks away.

There are no healthy winds to call. My breath is knocked out of me as I crash to the sand.

“Audra!” Vane screams. He sounds far away, and I can’t tell if it’s because the winds are so loud or because he’s been pulled away. Or maybe I’ve been pulled away. It’s hard to think through the pain.

I stumble to my feet, wiping the wetness dripping down my cheek. My hand turns red with blood, but I dry it on my pants and press forward. I feel for a draft—any draft—to call, but find only broken, useless winds.

The Stormers crippled the air.

Crippled me.

I unsheathe my windslicer, shredding the eerie winds. But every draft I destroy makes the air thicker, like a fog. It clings to me, stinging like needles as it weighs me down and clouds my path. I press forward anyway. I have to help Vane.

Dozens of wind spikes explode around me, burying me in rubble. I shove myself free of the dirt, rocks, metal, and who knows what else in time to hear Vane scream.

I race toward the sound, wiping blood and dirt from my eyes and slashing the fog with the windslicer. For one second the wall of windy muck parts, and I see two figures dressed in gray drop from the sky. One on each side of Vane.

“No!” I yell, charging forward as they bind him with a thick gray coil of drafts.

A wall of arctic wind slams into me.

I slash at the draft, but it’s like stabbing a waterfall. The force overpowers me. I tumble along the rocky ground, barely managing to hold on to my weapon as I drown in the vicious, broken draft.

Vane shouts my name.

I jump to my feet, only to get tossed backward by another icy blast. It pins me to a windmill, tearing my face like the draft’s grown chilly thorns.

I hold the windslicer to the airstream and the winds part wide enough to show me Vane. Our eyes lock and he shouts something I can’t hear—but it looks like “Don’t do it.”

Then the Stormers form a pipeline and shoot him out of the storm.

Gone.

A primal sob rocks me as another draft cracks against my chest like a frozen whip. I barely notice the pain.

I won’t let them take him.

Everything I’ve worked for—sworn to—comes down to this.

My sacrifice.

The thought should shake me, but it actually fills me with calm. I wonder if my father felt the same way.

I’m ready.

I shout at the winds, begging all of them to surround me so I can surrender myself to them.

The shattered, ruined drafts won’t answer my call.