“You can do this, Rhya,” a voice is saying from somewhere very far away. “Contain it. Force it down. Force it deep inside.”
The cyclone encroaches from all sides, an ever-tightening noose. There is no way to hold it back, no way to keep it from washing over me.
Every time I have tried to ride it out in the past, I have faltered. Every time I have attempted to outlast it, I have been swept away.
Not this time.
I push aside my self-doubt, my simmering anxieties that the gods have chosen wrong, that I am no child of the prophecy, that this destiny is a burden too great for my frail shoulders to bear. For, like it or not, there is no one else to bear it.
I am here.
This task, however insurmountable, is mine.
I am the Remnant of Air. I am the weaver of wind. I was born for this. I am stronger than my fear. And I will hold the line of chaos. I will keep the wind at bay. I will bolt the gate within.
Even if it kills me.
Inside my mind, I conjure an air shield like the one I made on the mountain, but taller, thicker, reaching all the way from the depths of the sea to the farthest reaches of the sky. Using all my focus, I blast it outward in all directions. Meeting the storm clouds head-on. Forcing them back, bit by bit, each handspan a hard-won battle, each sliver of space draining my resolve.
Still, I keep pushing.
Pushing and pushing and pushing, until the black squall fades into a gray memory. Until the waters lap like a summer lake. Until the hurricane retreats to the edges of my mental sea and the searing mark at my chest turns cold and silent.
The power is still there—it is always there; it will always be there—but I have done it. I have finally calmed the storm, contained the threat before it can burst forth. I have done the impossible, tethered the untetherable.
I have bested the wind.
Though the war has only waged inside my mind, I feel as though I have fought a battle. My muscles are sore, my mouth parched. My air-starved lungs are sharp blades of agony. I take a shaky breath, my first in far too long.
Cracking open my eyes, I find Penn standing before me. His face is so close, I can see every fleck of crimson in his dark ember eyes. And I wish, in that moment of quiet victory, that he’ll kiss me again. I wish that more than anything.
He doesn’t.
His hands slip up from their death grip on my shoulders and find my neck. His thumb strokes over my jugular vein, where the pulse patters in triple time. His words are turbulent with pride and relief.
“Well done, wind weaver,” he whispers. “Well done.”
Chapter
Twenty-eight
The days preceding Fyremas slip through my fingers faster than I can find my grasp. I spend mornings at practice in the cavern, calling forth my power, then driving it back with my mental air shields over and over again, until it is, if not second nature, at least slightly easier to keep the wind from spilling out unbidden.
This I do entirely alone. Penn doesn’t accompany me again—not to the cave, nor anywhere else. I see even less of him than I did before Carys gave birth. He goes out of his way to avoid me, holding me at arm’s length with a front of chill civility whenever our paths inevitably cross. He leaves quickly if we find ourselves in the same room, excuses himself from conversations with his men that include me, and never returns to the tower until he’s certain I’m already asleep.
It is probably for the best—or so I tell myself to cover the deep hurt his renewed indifference causes. I cannot afford to lean on him. This power is a burden I must learn to shoulder on my own.
I have never been so glad to have Soren’s book as a guide. There are chapters discussing the many nuances of maegic each Remnant can wield—from water currents to fireballs—but I stickto the simpler sections, which detail the fundamentals of self-mastery.
Wind weavers especially should focus on breath work. The air in one’s lungs is, after all, the very source of your power, the book tells me in one chapter.
Avoid enclosed spaces at all costs, it suggests in another.Confinement will severely limit even the most proficient sky sylph.
Be wary of mood swings, it warns finally.A wind weaver is prone to abrupt changes in temperament, much like sudden tempests. They can appear from nowhere and overwhelm if one does not guard against them.
Below this, Soren had written,Remind me not to get on your bad side, skylark.
After my first few solo power-summoning sessions, I leave the cavern on legs so shaky they scarcely last the climb back to the tower before giving out. But beneath my exhaustion is a newfound solace. For each time I successfully quiet my inner storms, I grow more confident in my abilities. I dare to hope that, someday, I might actually get a chance at a normal life. Not as the Remnant of Air, but as me. Rhya. For with my power locked deep within, I will no longer be a danger to those around me. I will no longer have to live in fear of what I might be capable of or whom I might hurt. I can simply…