I smiled back at her. “You know, where I come from, that could be considered a murder attempt.”
“I knew you’d catch yourself. You’re too damn good not to.”
Vesma stepped lightly into the air. Streamers of fire flared around her boots, and she hovered higher until she was four or five feet above the ground. She smirked down at me and gestured for me to join her. I channeled Flight, but this time, I used the same trick I’d learned in the hall and had practiced in the quiet of my own cell. The rich Vigor of the Vigorous Zone fed my technique. I shot up, away from the ground, and caught myself before I crashed into Vesma. She stared at me in amazement. I followed her gaze and looked down at myself. Heat haze rippled softly around my feet, and warm undercurrents of air swept up from the rocky ground to hold me in place.
“And your Vigor is almost untouched!” Choshi shouted excitedly.
“Our master has done it,” Nydarth whispered.
“The ripple has become a tidal wave,” Yono said.
“Don’t get ahead of yourselves,” I said to the dragon sprits as exhilaration took a roller-coaster ride through my nervous system.
My previous attempts at Flight before had demanded insane concentration, physical strain, and a constant switching of pathways. But using the Vigor from the environment had made me capably of full-fledged flight.
Like a goddamn superhero.
“How in all the hells are you doing that?!” Vesma demanded.
I couldn’t tear the stupid grin off my face. “Environmental Augmentation.”
“You said—”
“I figured it out. Or at least a part of it.”
Vesma stared at me as I experimented with the new technique. My wildest dreams didn’t even come close to the real thing. I still needed to focus, of course, but the mental energy was minimal. It was easier to simply stay in place or glide in a lazy arc toward the ground, but I could move through the air like it was water. I spun into a somersault, held myself upside down, and drifted closer to Vesma. The strain of keeping her own Flight technique active stood out on her face, but she wasn’t about to give up.
I kissed her mouth gently, upside down. The streamers of Flight vanished from around her boots as our lips touched, and I swooped to catch her out of the air before she could plummet to the ground. There was a little strain as I caught her in my arms, but I’d dealt with strain before.
We drifted downward in a slow spin until I landed on the ground.
Vesma pushed my chest. “Put me down, Immortal Swordslinger.”
I let her slip out of the bridal carry, and she brushed ash off her shoulder with a huff.
“And here I thought I was doing well,” she said. “Why do you always feel the need to show me up?”
“I don’t see Kegohr racing me through the sky at night,” I said with a wink. “Ask the monks. I’m sure they’ll teach it to you Environmental Augmentation if we stay here as long as you want to.”
Vesma’s eyes locked hungrily onto mine. “And you’d do that?”
“Depends. If—”
“Swordslinger!” a voice yelled from the valley below.
I whirled to search out the origin of the voice. A single figure stumbled forward and collapsed at the other end of the plateau, beside a gravestone. I sprinted over and fought off a wave of nausea when I spotted the man who’d spoken. Intestines glistened between his fingers as he tried to hold his own organs in his body, and blood pumped over his hands in a tide of red. His sunken eyes sought mine out, and I crouched beside him.
I propped up his head. “What happened?”
“Winged demons,” the stranger gasped. ”From above.”
“Spinedrakes,” Vesma said grimly.
“No, not monsters,” the man said as he gripped his stomach. “Demons. I went to the monastery, but you weren’t there. Your friend, the half-ogre, said you might be in the Vigorous Zone. He wanted to accompany me, but I said I had to deliver this message alone. Then. . . then I was attacked. If you hadn’t been flying, I would never have found you.”
“I’ll get you to safety,” I said. “Just hold on.”
“No, I’m—” The wounded man coughed blood over the front of my robes. “I’m done for. I know that. But you must—” His breath hitched in his throat, and a death-rattle hissed from his lungs. “You must stop them.”
The man’s fingers brushed uselessly against a scroll tucked into his belt. I pulled it out and looked back to the messenger’s face. Sightless eyes gazed up into the sky, and a small smile crossed his features in death. I pulled the scroll from his belt and gently set the still-warm corpse down upon the rocky ground.
“What a terrible way to die,” Vesma shuddered.
I glanced over the scroll. A bloodstained seal bearing the Wysaro red eagle stood out on the blood-stained parchment, and I broke it without a second thought. The handwriting was messy and looked as if it had been scrawled in a tremendous hurry.
Swordslinger,
They’ve taken the Castle. Demons everywhere.
We cannot reach the city in time.
We beg your help, in the name of the gods.
Cinder Wysaro
Chapter Twenty-Two
“They call out for help, Master,” Yono urged.
“We must answer their call,” Choshi said.
“The Wysaro should pay for their crimes,” Nydarth said. “Leave them to their suffering.”
I pushed aside the thoughts from the Immense Blades and handed Vesma the letter.
Vesma’s eyes widened. “Demons? In Wysaro Castle?”
“Yeah,” I said.
I untied my robe from around my chest, slid the outer layer off, wrapped my robe around the body’s torso to hold the intestines and tied it off with
