“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.”