The water rushed past, and with their rocketing ascent, the gray twilight gave way to bright sunlight. Soon, they were speeding past diamond-bright flashes of fish, schools of darting silver arrows, pink jellyfish clouds, and diving green sea turtles. Air bubbles rushed past. Air! And then, the glass-like whale-thing spit them out, throwing them into the air.
The boy and the wind landed on top of a wave. It was a giant, cresting, speeding wave. The boy stood on a flat metal board, balanced like a bird about to take flight.
The wind gusted, rushing faster than a passenger plane. Faster than those airplane buses that flew in the sky, but not as fast as the hawklike jet. The wind rushed over the boy and beat against him.
Ahead—far ahead, but not so far that they couldn’t see it—stood the thin, dark blue outline of land. It grew closer with every breath.
“Oh bother,” the boy said, closing his eyes and rubbing his tired face. “I made a tsunami.”
The wind shrieked.
“Well, I didn’t mean to,” he muttered. The wind barely caught his words they were traveling so fast. “All right. Don’t worry. I just have to stop it.”
He twisted his hand. The giant wave sped faster. The boy made a frustrated sound. He twisted his hand again. The wave grew in size. The wind flicked the boy’s ears. The boy scowled.
“I think . . .” the boy said, his expression grave. “I think I need help. Where’s a Bard when you need one?”
The wind wondered if the boy was thinking of the citrus and pearl dust scented woman. She loved the sea and sang more beautifully than any siren. He was right. A Bard would know how to disperse the waves.
The wind rushed next to the boy, keeping him upright as they crashed through the Atlantic. He twisted his hand, but for every hill of water he dispelled, a mountain joined them.
Lightning split the sky. With every twist of the boy’s hand, thunder boomed.
He was pale, sweating, shaking. He was nearly drained again. It was just like the time the battle-hardened brother had nearly killed him. The wind moaned and held him up. Were they rushing to another death promise? Was this how it would end?
But the wave was smaller. It was slowing. Or was that what giant-fist waves did when they neared land? Did they slow right before descending and crushing?
The water piled high, wave stretching over wave, until the boy was standing on top of a frothing, raging hill of power. The white water roared, a beast with barred teeth and seething intentions.
The boy balanced on top of the beast, surrounded by the wind. It gusted and roared and kept him safe.
Blue-streaked lightning and roaring thunder cracked as they sped onward. Overhead, a weather plane shot past. The boy kept himself covered in illusion, invisible to human eyes.
Ahead, the city speared the sky. From far away, it looked like sticks set in the sand, just waiting to be knocked over by the tide. Fragile, impermanent city.
But before that, there were the concrete-barricaded beaches, the narrowing bight, the old lighthouses.
“Look,” the boy said.
Waves piled against the shores, crashing in building-high heaps. But he wasn’t pointing at the waves—he was pointing at the old, rusty, leaning lighthouse.
It was bloodred and rust-white, perched on a rocky shoal. It was a small, rust scented lighthouse the wind sped through now and again. A favorite of terns and seagulls. But . . . no–the boy wasn’t pointing at the lighthouse. He was pointing at the man standing at the top of the lighthouse.
“Alterra.” The boy grinned.
The wind shoved him, and the boy’s smile grew.
“He’s here.”
The wind moaned.
The solange-eyed one faced the open water, power curling around him. He stood with legs wide and arms out as if he were challenging the sea.
And there, behind him, stood his brother. Ah. So they’d both come. They’d both come for the boy.
“He killed my dad,” the boy said, a wild spark in his eyes.
The wind moaned again.
