Part 3 · Chapters
The First True Victory
Victory can lift your head—and make you lose sight of those beside you.
A settlement of the Wind people stood before the Starfall Ruins.
When the three arrived, it was burning. Not with flame: wind moving too fast was grinding its wooden walls red-hot. A giant storm eagle circled overhead. Every beat of its wings raised whirlwinds strong enough to uproot houses.
A black crystal was embedded in its forehead.
Feng Ling tried to approach and was immediately thrown to the ground by turbulence. Shuang Ya's ice arrows could not match the eagle's speed. Xiao Jin's blade could not reach that height at all.
“First, slow it down,” Xiao Jin said.
Feng Ling climbed the tallest wind tower and blew her valley flute. Reverse currents rose along the eagle's flight path like invisible ropes around its wings. It screeched in fury and slowed a little, then dived toward the tower.
Shuang Ya pressed both hands to the ground. Pillars of ice grew from roof after roof, building a curved track through the air.
“Xiao Jin! I can hold it for three breaths!”
Xiao Jin stepped onto the ice track. On the first step, his flame melted the surface into high-pressure steam. On the second, Feng Ling compressed that steam into the narrow track. On the third, Ash Step burst beneath his feet.
Like an arrow launched by three elements together, he shot skyward along the ice.
The eagle opened its beak and spat wind blades. Shuang Ya extended the track to change his angle. At the last moment, Feng Ling reversed the current. Xiao Jin slipped between the wind blades, his Ember Blade shining almost white at such speed.
“Steam Skybreak!”
The blade's light crossed its forehead.
The black crystal shattered. The storm eagle regained its senses, spread its wings to catch the falling Xiao Jin, and carried him back to the village square.
When the darkness left the eagle's eyes, the villagers did not cheer at once.
First, they heard its exhausted breathing.
That sound reminded them they had won back more than a battle. They had won back a life.
After a brief silence, cheers erupted like a storm.
The villagers tossed Xiao Jin high into the air. Children chased his ragged cloak, and the Wind elder personally tied a wind-guard knot on each of the three. Even Shuang Ya, standing outside the crowd, wore the trace of a smile.
“How does it feel?” Feng Ling asked.
Xiao Jin looked at the blade in his palm. “I really can do it.”
Shuang Ya heard him. Her smile faded a little. “We did it.”
“I know.”
But Xiao Jin answered too quickly, his eyes still fixed on his own fire.
One victory after another was like a warm following wind, making it hard to notice when you were moving too fast. That night, they found the black-mist army's entrance on the ruins map. Shuang Ya wanted to send the evidence out first and ask the Wind people for support.
Feng Ling placed eight pebbles around the map and tried to turn eight small currents at once. As the fifth rose, the first four scattered into turbulence and blew her hair into a wild tangle.
“Once I can hold all eight directions, I'll call it ‘Dance of the Eight Winds.’” She gathered the pebbles one by one, smiling as if failure were only the unfinished first line of a new technique.
Suddenly, a corner of moonlight vanished beneath a broken arch.
A purple-eyed girl stepped from the shadow. Two faint silhouettes stopped half a pace behind her.
“Ye Sha.” Giving only her name, she placed a crescent-shaped black crystal on the map. “The Black-Armored General has been recording your moves. The ice track, the reverse wind, Steam Skybreak. It lets you win so you'll walk in using the methods you know best.”
“Wait for reinforcements,” Shuang Ya said at once. Xiao Jin nodded to Ye Sha, but did not release his staff. “If we know it's waiting, that's all the more reason not to let it leave with the elemental hearts.”
He had already slung the broken staff onto his back.
“There's no need to wait. Catch the leader inside, and we can end everything.”
Deep within the ruins, a suit of black armor sat upon a throne.
The armor opened its eyes.