Let The Wind Rise (Sky Fall, #3) (18 page)

The metal slats tilt farther, and the wind picks up speed, tearing at my face and hair.

I unravel the wind spike and blanket us each in a shield before I pull Gus close and try to find something to grab on to.

The walls are perfectly smooth—the tunnel too wide to use my feet for leverage. And the wind keeps rushing rushing rushing.

I hold firm as long as I can, but the gusts are relentless. Eventually, the river of air drags us away.

I
’m
rocking
this leader thing.

Okay, fine, maybe I’ve had a ton of help from the wind.

But the point is, I’m totally kicking butt!

We’re moving fast. We’ve avoided dozens of Stormers—a couple were close calls, but we still got out of there without being seen. And my Westerly isn’t having any problems finding the hidden doors we need.

So take that, power of pain and all your dark, evil, creepiness.

You just got stomped by a Westerly!

I’m planning the endless ways I’ll be bragging about this to Os when we pass through the next door and my mind blanks out.

“Is this . . . Raiden’s bedroom?” I whisper.

“I think it must be.” Solana traces her hand across the wall, which is painted with a perfect sky in a hundred shades of blue. Birds of every color soar from one side of the room to the other, and windswept trees disappear into the floor.

“He kept my grandmother’s murals,” she whispers. “I’ve always wanted to see them.”

I don’t blame her.

I’m not even into art, and I can tell they’re amazing.

The whole room is crazy beautiful. Everything is clean and white and pristine. The marble floor is polished, and the wall of windows gives us a view of the whole range of snow-capped mountains. Even in the dark—with the fires and smoke—it takes my breath away.

“I’m guessing this is all your family’s stuff?” I ask, pointing to the huge canopied bed covered in more pillows than one of my mom’s decorating magazines. The posts are carved to look like trees, and hundreds of wind chimes dangle from the ornate branches. The center chimes hang lower than the others, and they’re strung with a few clumps of colorful feathers and something that kinda looks like a miniature silver flute.

“No, this is all new,” Solana whispers. “Only the paintings are familiar.”

I study the room again, noting silver mirrors and vases full of reeds cut to different heights.

Who knew Raiden was so . . . decorate-y?

The better question is: Why are we here?

I told my Westerly to take us to the turbine, since sabotaging the crap out of this place is even more crucial now that they know we’re here. Maybe that’ll keep everyone distracted while we head for the dungeon, and if not, it’ll hopefully cripple them when they attack us.

I search the air for my shield and feel it calling me from what I’m guessing is Raiden’s closet. I’m on my way there when I turn back and snatch the chimes hanging from the center of the bed.

I’m not sure why I want them—and I kinda regret the decision when the rest of the chimes start tinkling like crazy. But it’s too late now. Plus, it makes me realize something.

We’re standing in the bedroom of the guy who’s basically declared himself King of the Wind, and . . . the air is perfectly still.

It almost feels stale.

I don’t know what that means—but it has to mean
something.

Solana shakes her head at me as I shove the wind chimes in my pocket—which is pretty full now between the chimes and Socky the Duck and the handprint thing.

“You’d better hope there were no Stormers around to hear that,” she whispers.

“Yeah, I know. I should’ve picked something quieter. But imagine Raiden’s face when he plops down in bed and realizes we were here, messing with his stuff.”

“See, and I’d rather find a way to ensure he never rests again,” Solana mumbles.

Okay. Yeah. I guess that’s a better plan.

I head for the closet, which turns out to be more like a master bathroom. There’s a huge tub in one corner, and a dressing table covered in colorful bottles that look like cologne. I peek into the walk-in closet as we pass it, and it’s floor to ceiling clothes.

“Where does he get all of this stuff?” I ask.

“I’m sure most of it is spoils of war. Why?”

“I don’t know. It’s just weird. This place is so normal—if normal people wore this much white fur and feathers.”

“What did you think his living quarters would be like?” Solana asks.

“I honestly had no idea.”

I always picture Raiden in a war room with a map of the world spread out on the table and giant knives stabbed into the countries he’s taking over.

Plus I’ve never seen a sylph
house
. That serial-killer place Arella lives in hardly counts. And Audra squatted in a burned-down shack on my parents’ property. The Gales sleep in holes in the ground so the Stormers can’t find them. Even my few childhood memories are all filled with the deserted human houses we crashed in during our days on the run.

“I guess it’s easy to forget there’s a person behind all of this,” Solana whispers, and somehow the idea makes it all worse.

The more I learn about Raiden, the more I can’t figure him out.

Does he stand in his closet asking himself which outfit would look the coolest for a long day of murdering children and then soak in a giant bubble bath afterward?

“I think your wind’s over there,” Solana says, and I follow her to a small cubby room with nothing but a toilet.

Side note—I guess it really is true:
Everyone
poops.

I kick down the seat and stand on the lid, feeling the section of the ceiling where the Westerly is circling. “Pretty sure there’s a door here.”

“Let’s hope it leads to a wind tunnel.”

I know I should be rooting for the same thing, but Aston made it sound like the wind tunnels are a whole other nightmare.

I give the command to open the hatch anyway.

“Need a boost?” I ask Solana, kneeling and cupping my hands.

She steps over them, hops up onto the toilet tank and stretches high enough to grab hold of the edge of the doorway, then pulls herself up like a pro.

“You coming?” she asks. “This isn’t the kind of place I want to linger.”

I can’t climb with my bad elbow, so I have to convince my Westerly to pull me—and it doesn’t go smoothly. When I finally flop into the tunnel, I totally get why Solana’s desperate to keep moving.

The air feels hot and sour, like we’re standing in Raiden’s armpit—and it smells just as disgusting.

The sticky drafts pull at me, chanting,
Go! Move! Faster!

We start out at a walk, but it quickly turns to a run—then a flat-out sprint.

And still I want to go faster.

Faster!

FASTER!

My focus narrows to the next breath, the next step, the next burst of speed—which is probably why I don’t notice the giant, spinning fan until I’m seconds from charging through it.

“Whoa,” Solana says as I grab her arm and screech us both to a stop. “How did you see that?”

“My Westerly got my attention.” And I’m pretty sure its current song about watching where you walk is the wind’s way of calling me an idiot.

The song shifts again as I concentrate on the fan, repeating a single word in a very specific rhythm.

“How much do you trust me?” I ask Solana.

“Why—is it telling you to jump?”

“It is. And I’m pretty sure if we do it at the same time, we’ll end up as Windwalker smoothies. So since you can’t hear the Westerly telling you when to go . . .”

“You’re going to have to push me,” Solana finishes.

She blinks hard several times. Then steps in front of me. “I guess we should get it over with.”

Her hair blasts my face until she gathers all the blond waves at the base of her neck.

I seriously can’t believe we’re going to do this.

We can’t even see what’s on the other side. For all we know, it’s another fan—or an army of Stormers.

Now!
my Westerly tells me.

Now!

Now!

“In case this doesn’t go well,” Solana whispers, “I just wanted to say . . . you were right about his power. I can feel the need corrupting me. But I don’t know how to stop it.”

Aston’s solution flits through my mind, and I squeeze the thought away. “The less you use it, the safer you’ll be.”

She nods. “That’s why I’m letting you push me into a fan instead of using a command to stop the blades.”

“There’s a command to stop the blades?”

“That’s what the need is telling me. It senses what I want and comes up with a way to make it happen.”

Crap—now
I’m
tempted.

One more time isn’t going to make
that
big of a difference for her, right?

Except . . . the power sounds even creepier when I really think about it.

How can the need
know
what she wants—and what if she wants something bad?

My Westerly has gotten us this far. It’s safer to keep trusting it—even if nothing about this decision actually feels safe.

“You ready?” I ask.

Solana nods, but her shoulders are shaking.

Now!
my Westerly orders.

Now!

NOW!

On the next repetition I close my eyes and shove Solana as hard as I can.

I’m fully expecting a sound like something squishy dropping into a blender. Instead there’s an excruciating silence before Solana calls out, “I’m okay! It’s not as bad as I thought. But there’s a pretty steep drop on the other side, so you’ll need to use the Southerly I gave you to stop your fall.”

I nod—which is stupid because it’s not like she can see me. Then I scoot closer to the fan and try to get a handle on the rhythm again.

Now.

Now.

Now
—crap, I should’ve gone but I wasn’t ready!

Now!

Now—Audra’s waiting, come on, dude—NOW!

I leap through the blades, preparing to be smoothiefied. But all I feel is a buzz of rushing air. The drop hits me then, and it takes me several seconds to remember the right command, so I land a little harder than I want to—but I’m alive!

We’ve ended up on the ground floor of a tower, its round walls stretching at least five stories. And there are about a zillion fans covering the wall, alternating with round vents in a checkerboard pattern.

Streams of hot and cold air blast through the fans and vents and collide against a giant motor in the center, making all the cogs and springs spin like we’re inside some sort of giant steampunk clock tower.

The stones tremble beneath our feet, pulsing with the energy generated by the turbine.

“Okay,” I tell Solana. “Time to break this thing.”

I
can’t stop the spinning.

I can’t even slow us down.

Now I understand how a tumbleweed feels, caught in a sandstorm.

But this isn’t the desert.

We’re tangled in an indoor squall—blasting maximum velocity through a frosted funnel.

At least the wind seems to be reviving Gus’s strength. I wish I could say the same for myself. Instead, the cold sinks deep, smothering my consciousness in mental snow. The shivers shake away my reason, and when I beg my Westerly for guidance, it offers no solution.

Gus’s Easterly remains silent as well, and I sink deeper into the haze of cold. Sheer stubborn will helps me fight my way back, and I stretch out my senses, stunned when I feel a faint itch on the edge of my left thumb.

A brave Northerly reaches for me from somewhere high above.

I whisper its call, and the draft seeps through the cracks and coils around both of us.

Before I can celebrate, I catch the lyrics of its disjointed melody.

The Northerly sings only two words, repeating them with a thundering authority.

Not a suggestion.

A command.

Let go.

My Westerly joins the song.

So does the Easterly.

And when I chance a look at Gus, he’s mouthing,
Trust the wind.

I tighten my grip, not sure I can risk his life again. He’s far too weak to brave these torrents on his own.

But we’d never have gotten this far if the wind wasn’t on our side. . . .

It takes five steadying breaths before I pull my fingers slowly from Gus’s and let the drafts rip us apart, slamming us into opposite walls. Pain screams through my back as the cuts Raiden gave me tear open.

But as the shock fades, I realize:
We’re no longer moving.

Somehow, on our own, we’re able to stand against the relentless winds.

Leave it to Raiden to turn his fortress into a game of everyone for themselves.

“I’m pretty sure my insides have frozen,” Gus says, dropping to his knees and clutching his stomach.

“Mine too.” I press my ear against the stones, trying to get a read on our location. “The drafts are drowning out the Shredder. But if we walk against the wind, it should lead us back to where we entered.”

“The Stormers will be waiting for us there,” Gus reminds me.

“I’m sure they will. But it sounded like there’s only one way in or out of this place.”

“That doesn’t make sense. This wind has to go somewhere.”

My Westerly seems to agree, ending every verse of its song with
Charge forward!

But when we try to get moving, Gus’s legs collapse beneath him.

“You need to rest,” I say, resisting the urge to help. If I draw close, it would only send us airborne again.

“I’m fine,” Gus promises.

“I don’t think you realize how close you came to dying. I barely brought you back.”

“Yeah . . . about that.” His eyes lower to my lips, and my heart jumps into my throat.

He remembers. . . .

“I’m really sorry,” I mumble.

“For saving my life?”

“For triggering that trap in the first place, thinking I was being clever.”