Let the Sky Fall (10 page)

“Then flow and race.”

The Easterly rushes through the half room, stirring the leaves and cooling the sweat pooling at my hairline before it whisks away.

Vane’s eyes widen. “Cool.”

“Memorize those four phrases. They will save your life a thousand times over.”

He doesn’t say anything, too busy staring at the giant grasshopper that jumped onto the flat edge of the windslicer.

I snatch the disgusting insect and toss it at his head. “Pay attention, Vane. What did I just tell you?”

He shrieks, waving the now flying creature away from his face. “Memorize the spell. Got it—no need to get psycho with the bugs.”

The grasshopper lands on his shoulder and he flails to shoo it away, fixing me with a glare that would’ve been evil if he weren’t blushing so bright red. It distracts me from what he said, but only for a second.

“Wait, did you say ‘spell’?”

“Spell. Command. Whatever you want to call this crap.”

My mind spins with the implications of his words.

“I’ll ignore for a second that you just referred to the single most
valuable element of our heritage as ‘crap’—though you can bet we’ll get back to that. Do you think I’m teaching you . . . magic?”

I feel crazy even saying the word.

“You control the wind. What else am I supposed to think?”

He has a point—from a human standpoint, at least. But he’s still wrong.

“We control the wind through words, Vane. We ask the gust to do what we want and convince it to obey. It’s a simple communication—no different from what you and I are doing right now.”

“We
talk
to the wind? Like it’s alive?”

“In a way. Each of the four winds has a language. Only sylphs can understand and speak the languages because we’re part of the wind ourselves. But there’s no magic or spells. Just a simple dialogue between wind and Windwalker.”

I should’ve realized he was confused. It explains why he isn’t taking this as seriously as he needs to. “I can’t believe how little you know about your heritage. I know your mind was wiped, but I thought some things were just . . . instinctive.”

I realize my slip a second too late.

“What do you mean my mind was
wiped
?”

“Nothing.”

“Like hell it’s nothing.” He scoots closer, the windslicer no longer intimidating him. “Tell me what happened to me. Now.”

I want to be angry with him for once again interrupting this very important lesson—and as his trainer I should demand he pay attention, and whip him around with some winds if he refuses.

But I can’t.

I feel sorry for him.

Sorry for what I know.

Sorry for what I’ve done.

“You have to understand,” I tell him, trying to sound calmer than I feel. “When the Stormer attacked it was like the world ended. Everything gone, destroyed, sucked up, or broken and left in splinters. My mother found us huddled on the ground, sobbing. She didn’t have any choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

“No one can hide from Raiden—not for long. We had to make him think we were dead. My mother and I could disappear easily enough, but you were too important. The only place we knew Raiden would never look for you was with the groundlings, and the only way to hide you there was if you didn’t know who or what you are. Humans don’t know we exist—and we couldn’t risk that you would tell them.”

“So she
wiped my mind
?” His hands tear through his hair, like he’s trying to feel for a wound or injury. “What the hell did she do to my brain?”

“She called a Southerly and sent it deep into your subconscious. The wind did the rest.”

I can still remember the way his skinny, bruised body collapsed to the ground as she wrapped the draft around him and sent it into his mind. My mother didn’t explain what was happening. So he turned his wide, terrified eyes to me, silently begging me to help him.

Vane watches me now, looking so much like the little boy that day it nearly takes my breath away. I owe him the truth. As much as I’m willing to tell, at least.

“You said it felt like a million butterflies were flapping around in your brain,” I whisper. “I held your hand and told you to close your eyes. When you woke a few hours later, you didn’t remember much of anything. The wind wiped all your memories away.”

Vane doesn’t speak—doesn’t move. I take his hand, stunned at the overwhelming urge I feel to reach him. Comfort him. Try to make it right.

He jerks away. “How do I get them back?”

I can’t blame him for asking. But I need him to forget. One memory at least.

“You can’t, Vane. They’re gone. Forever.”

He closes his eyes, looking fragile. Crushed.

Hopeless.

I close my eyes too.

Wishing on every star out there that the words I just said were true.

Hoping even harder I’ll never have to tell Vane they aren’t.

CHAPTER 13

VANE

I
’m speechless—probably for the first time in my life.

My memories were stolen.

Not repressed.

Stolen
.

I’ve lived the last ten years with a black hole for a past—not the easiest way to grow up. And apparently that’s all I’ll ever have.

I want to throw something. Or maybe pick up that crazy needle-sword thing and see what kind of damage I can do to the walls with it.

But another piece of me—a tiny, much quieter piece—is relieved that I didn’t forget my parents.

I’m not the horrible, selfish jerk who erased his family because it hurt to remember them. It wasn’t my fault. Audra’s mother stole my
memories while Audra held my hand and promised I would be okay.

Which at least explains the only memory I have. Audra leaning over me, staring at me with those dark, haunted eyes, until a breeze whisks her away. That was
real
. I just don’t remember the rest because the memory was swept out of my mind by the wind.

How does it even work? How does a gust of wind steal my memories?

“I know this is hard to understand,” she says quietly. “But we had to keep the fact that you survived top secret so Raiden wouldn’t come searching for you. That’s why we let the human authorities run you through their adoption system. We kept watch, to make sure you were okay, but we needed you to disappear, stay off the grid—as you call it. And that wouldn’t happen if you were running around talking about sylphs and Stormers and the four languages of the wind. I’m not sure which would’ve been worse: what the humans would’ve done to you or what would’ve happened when Raiden found you. And he
would
have found you.”

“He found me anyway, didn’t he?” I’m surprised at the growl in my voice. “And how is that, by the way? I’m guessing he didn’t just wake up and think, ‘Hey, I bet Vane’s in the crappy Coachella Valley.’ ”

Her shoulders sag. “No. I . . . made a mistake.”

“So it’s your fault.”

She shrinks even more, like she’s trying to hide from the words. But she doesn’t deny them.

It’s strange to see her so deflated, like her guilt’s drained all the fire inside her.

I bite back my apology.

She deserves to feel guilty. How many different ways has she screwed up my life?

She reaches for my arm, her warm fingers stroking my skin. “Please. Let’s not waste our training time on this.”

I shake off her hand, shoving my body back to put some space between us.

“Why is he looking for me, Audra? Why me? Why my family?”

She looks away, like she doesn’t want to answer. But she does. “It’s because you’re a Weston.”

“What, my family’s important?”

“Yes. No. Well, yes and no. And I guess the proper term is ‘Westerly.’ Weston is just your family name.”

“Gonna have to be clearer than that.”

She straightens, a little of the fight returning to her eyes. “This isn’t going to make a whole lot of sense, but fine. If it will make you take your training seriously, so be it.” Her hands twist around each other and she stares at the space between us.

“I told you earlier—there are four languages for the wind. There are also four kinds of Windwalkers: Northerlies, Southerlies, Easterlies, and Westerlies. Everyone’s born with what’s called their ‘native tongue.’ The language of their heritage. For most of our history no one bothered learning any of the other languages. There wasn’t any point. We lived in separate corners of the earth. We rarely mixed company. Why mix languages? It wasn’t until the Gale Force that things changed.”

“The Gale Force?”

“A force we created for peace and safety, in both our society and the groundlings’. The winds have been shifting—becoming more wild. More reckless. And it’s our responsibility to calm the storms, stop them from destroying human cities like they do now. Not for glory or power or respect, but because it’s right.”

She points to a small blue patch on the sleeve of her jacket, just below her right shoulder. Four wavy lines twisted together in the middle, like a knot. That explains the crazy outfit. And probably the freakishly tight hair.

“So, you’re a soldier in the army?”

“A guardian. But yes. At first, all the guardians were Northerlies, because the northern wind is the strongest. But it’s also the coldest and the most unstable, as are its people, so—”

“I take it you’re a Northerly?”

“Why would you think that?”

I almost laugh. Does she not realize how cold and scary she can be? Or is it normal to threaten people with evil swords of doom in sylph-land? “Never mind.”

“My family name is Eastend. Easterlies were the next to join the Gales, to be a softening influence. But they were commanded to learn the Northerly language, to increase their strength. And when they did, they discovered something unexpected.”

She scoots back and whispers the call she taught me. A small breeze swirls in the air between us. I cough as sand and bits of dead palm leaves catch in my throat.

“A single draft of wind has power of its own. But mix it with another wind and it changes.”

She whispers something I don’t understand and another draft rushes from behind me. A colder wind. Louder. I can’t make out its words as it whips around Audra.

She whispers again and the gusts swirl together to form a dust devil.

I jump to my feet, away from the tiny cyclone growing larger by the second. Audra stands too, hovering over the mini-tornado.

“When you combine the different winds, they play off each other, becoming stronger and more flexible. And if you know how to control them, they can do anything you want them to.”

She mumbles something unintelligible and the winds race harder. Faster and faster they spin, until the dust devil’s strong enough to suck up the needle-sword thing and shoot it out the top of the funnel. Audra catches it with a graceful sweep of her right arm as she whispers, “Break free, be free.” The winds sweep away, leaving a dusty trail in their wake.

Okay,
that’s
pretty cool.

“The possibilities that knowledge opened up were endless. But they discovered something else—something that changed everything. When you combine the winds, their powers increase exponentially with each wind you add. So if someone were to combine all four winds and command them perfectly, they would be unstoppable. Raiden became determined to be the first to learn all four.”

My stomach sours at the name.

“He’s a Northerly—but he’s mastered the other languages so completely he uses them more fluently than those native to the tongue. He joined the Gales when he was young, but after a few
years of service, he decided we were wasting our power on protecting the groundlings from storms. He thought we should embrace the wilder gusts—not tame them. Claimed they were the wind’s way of telling us it’s
our
time to be the dominant race on the planet, and that we should focus on building our own strength and skill while we let the winds wipe away the weaker groundlings. His promise of power appealed to a number of other guardians—especially the conquering Northerlies—and he began amassing a following. Before the Gales discovered his mutiny, Raiden attacked the Westerlies.”

I feel like I should sit down for this part of the story, so I sink to the ground. She sits next to me, staring at the floor.

“No one had bothered learning the Westerly tongue. The west wind is a weak wind. A peaceful wind. And the Westerlies were outsiders. Kept to themselves. Most were nomadic. Everyone thought they were crazy. They probably were.”

I have a feeling I should be insulted by that, but I’m too interested in the word “were.” Past tense.

“Raiden was determined to master the fourth language. Determined to become all-powerful. So he tracked down a Westerly family and tried to force them to teach him their language. When they refused, he slaughtered them in retribution—and to send a message to the other Westerlies. Make it clear he would not take no for an answer. It was the bloodiest crime our world had ever seen.”

Her voice cracks, and she swallows several times, like she’s fighting for control. “It all happened before I was born, but my Gale trainer showed me pictures so I would understand my enemy. A family of five—including three children—torn apart like rag dolls. Like
he’d bound their limbs to tornados and sent the winds in opposite directions. There was barely anything left to recognize.”

It isn’t until a fly almost zips into my mouth that I realize my jaw’s hanging open. To murder kids over a language? Over wind?

“Things spiraled out of control after that,” she whispers, like the words are too horrible to say at full volume. “What remained of the Gales rallied against Raiden. But he was too powerful and had too many guardians who fought at his side, either because they believed in his cause—or feared him. The loss was devastating. Only a few escaped with their lives. And without the Gales’ protection, our world—as we knew it—crumbled. Windwalkers have always been a small, scattered race, but the Gales had established one main city, high in the mountains, where the clouds meet the earth. Raiden and his warriors blasted it with everything they had. When it fell, he murdered the king and took the crown. Anyone who didn’t swear fealty to him was killed, and he rebuilt the city as a private fortress for his army of Stormers. The strong mountain winds fuel their power, and he’s been able to spread his reign of terror to the rest of the earth.”