A Court of Wind and Song

11: Wind

Azriel

533.

I am 533 years old.

I have fought in wars beyond imagination, ran headfirst into battles, witnessed unimaginable carnage and destruction. I have seen powers that created the world itself turn on me, have fought my way back from death itself.

And I have never seen anything like this.

Buildings crumbling out of the blue, livestock keeling over and dropping dead, tornadoes ripping through the flatlands, winds strong enough to rip me out of the air, fires scouring the earth. Blood and destruction and depravity, everywhere I looked. Families ripped apart, people screaming, Ciatnens and Solareans alike running in terror.

I'd used the comm crystal to find Minka. Both of us in charred leathers and covered in debris and dirt, but we were trying to get as many people to safety as we could. Tornadoes weren't uncommon in Astra, especially in the central regions. But they had never appeared during this time of year, and with so many right after another.

Luckily, it meant that a large amount of shelters had been built throughout the territory. Huge buildings made of iron dug into the ground, warded and spelled beyond belief to provide as much protection as possible. We were pulling people from rubble and into them as fast as we possibly could in between storms, flying and sprinting through villages and cities to help as many people as we could.

"It's getting close!" She screamed to me over the howling wind, eyes on the swirling mass of wind hovering in the distance, "We need to go!"

There were more people here, and I knew it. I was ripping through the rubble of a church, my leather gloves torn through and covered in debris. I could hear people crying out, trapped beneath stone and brick, begging to be saved before the next tornado blew through.

"We can't!" I called to her, "I'm not leaving them to die."

Just a few more minutes, that was all I needed. I just needed to get them to the underground shelters, and then that tornado could rip this land to shreds if it wanted to.

I felt Minka's eyes on my back, could practically feel her trying to decide what to do, how to stop this. I spared her one glance, the wind ripping through her red hair, the panic in her eyes.

And then her face stilled, and determination took over. I watched as she turned on her heel and ran away.

Not in the direction of the shelter, but straight towards the tornado.

"Minka!" I screamed for her.

She did not stop, did not falter. She just kept running.

"Fuck!" I growled, ripping through the rubble faster now. I used controlled blasts from my siphons to throw the larger stones out of the way, ignoring the way my hands were being cut on the shards of glass below. I kept going, kept digging, kept searching.

"Help us!" A voice screamed in the howling of the wind, "I have children down here! Help us, please!"

Rock after rock after rock. My feet planted on the ground, unmoving no matter how hard the wind pushed me. I would not falter, would not yield, would not go.

And yet, I was running out of time.

A glance over at where Minka had disappeared into the windstorm, and I nearly passed out.

She was standing in the middle of a field, a yellow shield around her blocking the debris and fires that raged around her. Two hands raised to the sky, blowing air and wind towards that tornado, stopping it in its tracks.