“Iris!” At first, I lurch in fear that I’ve been discovered. Then Wolf shouts again, his hands covering his mouth to call again. Frantic, he searches the crowds, terrified for my safety. “Iris, come here!” He fears that I’ll end up like his first love, Lavender, dismembered by the enemy.
The small part of my disillusioned heart that still tenderly clings to the dream feels sorry for him. “I am fine, Wolf,” I whisper unthinkingly. “Just let me go.” Never did I stop to consider how my voice might carry on the breeze.
Yet the effect is immediate. Wolf stills his body, eyes landing on the exact place where I twirl. “You’re a Windwalker? How long have you known?” Throughout the chaos of his soldiers running into formation for an attack, none of them notice that the Ddraigs systematically lower themselves over the corrals, some plucking people out of the stalls as though they are wheat in a ripe field. Their screams as they rise to the sky sound no different than the soldier’s alarms.
“Not long,” I reply softly, with a lump building in my throat. Keep your eyes on me, Wolf, I demand, even though I feel no mental connection to him anymore. It is not an effort for him to watch me dance and writhe through my windstorms. I only pray that my movements will distract him long enough for the rest of the people to be saved. “I am sorry it must be this way.”
“You would choose Cyrus over me?” Wolf squints into the fading sunlight, his incredulous smile slowly shifting to a shuttered, dark expression. “After everything I did for you? After all the hell I’ve put my brother through, punishing him for his sins against you? I thought you understood how much I love you.”
“And I thought you knew me better than that. But it’s not just your brutality toward Cyrus,” I whimper, my skin beginning to itch and dry out from the force of the winds swirling around me. “I never wanted you to hurt anyone! I sent you to build a master house for a united front, so that we could fight Déchets. Not join them by becoming monsters too! They are a danger to—”
“The Ddraigs,” Wolf finishes my thought, spitting on the ground in disgust. “Everything you do now is for them, isn’t it? You follow a path I cannot take.”
“As do you, I fear,” I reply, the Windwalker’s magical, strange voice sighing through my thoughts. I am power. I can bring worlds to destruction with my dance. I am never ending. With the intrusive voice comes a lightness of feeling, a euphoria that demands I free myself from my troubles, succumbing to the power raging through my veins. The ache in my skin lessens even though when I look down at my fingers, I can see rough cuticles and cracked, bleeding patches of dryness. I can bring the Devil’s Spine down into a pile of gravel if I choose! Nothing—no one—can hold me back!
Fight it, Iris! Only a few more in the corrals, then we’re done, Siri bellows through our connection, momentarily clearing my mind. Don’t get lost in the magic!
“Tell me something,” I stall, struggling to keep the traitorous euphoria from pulling me away from my cause. “Why hurt the house members here? How does this help you?”
Wolf clicks his tongue as though scolding a child. “Fear is a wonderful motivator, Iris. It helped me separate the cattle from the carnivores. I’ll claim my title as king quickly because of the terror my name will strike into the hearts of man. Word will travel that I am brutal in my justice, and none will stand against me.”
Siri’s voice shouts in triumph, stilling my response before I can begin. The last one was just picked up. Three of your old housemates are among them. I’m calling out for Suryc, and once he gets Cyrus, we’re gone.
With a lump forming in my throat, my next words take several attempts before they can be voiced. “Our land does not need a ruler to be feared; if we did, we’d sign our allegiance over to Déchets. I will make sure that you fail, Wolf. We will meet again on a battlefield of our own design soon enough.”
“Oh no! You don’t get to just walk away from me! Not when I’ve got your precious—” Suryc’s triumphant screech rattles my bones as he soars up to join the rest of the Ddraigs. They swirl up into the clouds, easily disappearing from view. Cane looks around, noticing the canvas tent that’s now ripped to shreds and the empty stalls. “You asked me to lead, and yet you betray my authority like this?”
“I would not act a traitor if you had not become a tyrant.” It kills me to speak the words, my lungs threatening to seize up around my heart. Yet even as my limbs grow tired of the dance, my mind is alive with the peculiar voice. I am a tornado; I am destruction. I am the siren that leads men to their doom. Nothing can hold me. No one can stop me. I am a new force of nature, and I will not yield.
Cane’s head droops to touch his chin to his chest as a sigh escapes his lips. “If I ever catch you, the law dictates that you must be sentenced to death. And while I will never stop hunting you, I will always love you still. Even when your blood pools at my feet, I will love you.”
Without another word, he whistles to his troops. A sharp gesture of his fingers and all preparations for battle cease.
Fire blazes around me, destroying my line of sight.
