A strange knot formed in her throat—a tangle of hope and happiness followed by such insurmountable grief that she thought she’d crack open. Her fists clenched tightly around thechi.
The last time she’d flown with one of these, Enn had beentaken.
“I don’t know if I can do this.” She tried to keep her voice strong. It came out small.
She felt the yaeger shifting beside her. When she glanced at him, his eyes were trained on her, his gaze as steady as his hold on a silver knife. “It’s all right,” he said, and somehow, the deep tone of his voice grounded her. “I’m what they call a yaeger, after all. I control the flow of your Affinity—I can suppress it, or in this case, I can channel it.” A wry smile came to his lips. “I much prefer the latter.”
Linn stood, and the world dipped, expanding into a stretch of a cliff that sloped down sharply, alternating between shadows and ghost-white snow. Beneath, the pines were only a mass of darkness, as small as grains of rice she could hold in her palms. Her head spun, and the familiar nausea, combined with that cold touch of fear, gripped her. The image came back to her, jarring in all the ways it was wrong: Enn’s body, crumpled, his chi folded in on itself, plunging from the skies.
She sensed movement next to her, and the next thing she knew, strong hands—strong, but gentle—clasped around her shoulders, their warmth shielding her temporarily from the cold of the night. “Look at me,” the yaeger said. She met his gaze; it anchored her. “I won’t let you fall. All right? I won’t. Just focus on me and focus on your Affinity.”
Linn forced herself to nod. He’d been a lieutenant before his expulsion—and she knew from the Wind Masters that power came not only from physical strength but from mental fortitude as well. The best commanders had high sensitivity to their subordinates’ thoughts and knew how to manage their troops’ emotions when needed.
Perhaps she was being managed.
But if she died, then he would die, too. That was cold comfort.
Linn drew a deep breath and closed the gap between her and the yaeger in a single step. He went stone-still as she clasped her hands around his waist, her head barely at his neck.
“Hold tight, and listen for my signal,” she said, hoping she sounded commanding.
Her Affinity leapt to her call and her winds roared to life: triumphant and strong and free. Her heart ballooned with the fabric of her chi, the transparent silk blooming over their heads, buoyed by the draft.
“Now!” Linn cried.
The ledge fell away from beneath them—and then they were falling.
At first, that was what it felt like—free-falling, tumbling in a messy tangle of limbs and hair and fabric. Linn tugged on her winds, and she felt another presence descend upon her Affinity in her mind, warm and strong as a guiding hand, pulling with her. Her chi spread like two stretches of gossamer wings above her shoulders, pulling them back, back.
And then they were flying. Soaring, in an infinite sky of stars and snow, the wind whipping their faces and howling past their ears. The ground beneath felt so far away—because she wasflying—and the world had stretched into a boundless realm of possibility and hope and…magic.
Something rose in her chest, buoyed by the winds that lifted her, and suddenly she was laughing, shrieking with glee as they soared over the summit of a mountain, its jagged peaks and snow-topped caps reaching for them from far below. The moon was a scythe in the midnight sky, and for the first time in many, many long years, Linn thought she could reach the stars.
Hope unfurled in her chest: tiny, broken wings.
Would she find her way home, after all? Was she still worthy of acceptance from her family, her Wind Masters, and her empire?
They were descending now, and her winds seemed to have taken a mind of their own. They cradled her like giant, invisible arms that extended from the night sky, gently lowering her and the yaeger on the chi that flapped lightly overhead.
The shadows below parted into the tops of individual pine trees, snow glittering silver between them beneath the moonlight. Linn tugged on her Affinity, deftly weaving her winds like pulling strings at a Kemeiran shadow puppet show. They spiraled down, landing in the snow.
The world stilled.
Linn pushed herself to a sitting position. The elation of her flight gone, she was suddenly shivering. Using her Affinity so soon after an injury had hollowed her bones and swept away her energy, leaving her an empty husk.
Something warm was draped over her shoulders. Fur tickled her chin.
“Take my coat,” the yaeger said, his deep voice melding with the night. “You’ve earned it.”
Linn didn’t even have the strength to reply. As she drew the coat around her, she heard the sound of rummaging behind her. A moment later, the yaeger appeared with a cold bliny pancake.
A sharp pang of hunger tore through her, insistent now that her adrenaline had faded. It was all she could do not to snatch it from him. Linn finished it in three bites, the faint taste of fish and cream lingering on her lips.
She glanced around them for the first time. They’d landed in the middle of the Syvern Taiga, with nothing but trees surrounding them for miles and miles.
“We camp here for the night.” The yaeger was already spreading the chi around them, the fabric shimmering just slightly as it unfurled over the snow. This was why chi was the ideal material for Kemeiran windsailer scouts and warriors: It was light as air, thinner than silk, yet possessed tremendous heat preservation properties.
A small ounce of gratitude sparked within her as she watched him spread another blanket over the ground. She didn’t think she could have walked a single step more, and she was glad he didn’t suggest it.
