Page 89 of Swift Wings Shadowed Heart
“Not a good idea to test me,” he murmurs.
Zephyros huffs, startling us. He blows air through his nostrils, looking displeased.
—What is this?he demands.
—What is what?
—I sense… arousal.
Wyrm’s rot!I want to melt into the ground. Maybe I can get Nate to use his fire power to cook me down into a puddle of melted bones and charred entrails.
—Stay out of this, Zephyros,I order him.These are my private affairs.
—Private affairs?! What are you saying? By all the stars, you mated with him!
—No. I did not. Like I said… my private affairs. Not yours.
With an angry grunt, Zephyros stomps toward the edge, leaps, and takes off, the blast from his wings sending us backward.
“What’s his problem?” I demand to no one in particular.
“He has never liked me.” Vaylen squints up at Zephyros’s retreating figure.
“Why?”
He shrugs. “Some history between him and Fragor, I suspect.”
“Really? Like what?”
“I have no idea. I can’t fathom the expanse of their lives and all they have been through.” He sounds forlorn, as if he’s imagining untold pain, which I have often thought must be part of the long lives of Embernia’s dragons. “Only they know what strife they shared, what enmity exists between them caused by a timeless wrongdoing. Besides, they’ve lost so much.”
His words unleash a deep sadness in me and get me thinking about the kind of man he is. With every passing day, I learn new things about him that show me he’s much more than he portrays. Watching him now, I discover a depth of feeling that surprises me, and suddenly, I want to ask him a million questions.
He clears his throat, and the vulnerable expression brought on by his momentary show of emotion disappears to be replaced by his usual nonchalance. Feeling unbalanced, I’m left wondering if he would answer my questions and tell me the things I would love to learn about him.
Something tells me he wouldn’t.
38
Rhea
We break for a quick lunch of cold cuts, nuts, and fruit, then we’re back by the cliffside, ready to master a couple of more moves.
“Wind Blast is an offensive maneuver,” Vaylen says, the sun now shining straight above, “so we’ll compliment it with a defensive one.” He looks at me. “What is next in the manual, Skysinger Wyndward?”
“Wind Wall, Sir.”
He paces in front of us, hands interlaced behind him. “Correct. When you first try it, you may release Wind Blast instead. Don’t worry. That is common. It’s easy to unleash and let go of our power, and much harder to unleash it then retrain it. Another difficult aspect of the maneuver is figuring out the proper size of one’s wall. Can you tell me why, Breezehart?”
“Sir, because in order to create a Wind Wall capable of stopping an incoming attack, the Skysinger must understand the breadth of their power to form a wall of commensurate size. If the Skysinger forms an improperly sized wall, it won’t stop any incoming projectiles, be it rocks, spears, arrows, and much less a suicidal Screechclaw.” She sounds like I imagine a cogwing would sound when reciting from a book. It’s funny… and endearing.
Ever since learning about it, I’ve thought that Wind Wall would be a tricky maneuver, and now, after having performed Wind Blast, I believe it more than ever. How in all the hells am I going to rein in the amount of power I was able to blast? Wind Wall can save a rider’s life, but not everyone is capable of stopping more than a pebble. That’s the reason the type of wall a Skysinger can form is often seen as a measure of their true skill. Regardless of the force of their Wind Blasts, some Skysingers can only form walls large enough to protect themselves from a minor attack equivalent to a jab to the face. Others are capable of producing walls that span a handful of people and safeguard them all from a volley of arrows. While others manage to stop a plummeting Screechclaw bent on impaling an opponent like a flesh and blood spear. The range wind elementals are capable of in terms of wall creation is wide, though the true power resides in the Skysingers’ ability to combine their efforts to build one huge wall capable of withstanding any attack.
Needless to say, I’m worried. What if I can’t create a wall stronger than a sheet of paper?
“That is correct,” Vaylen says. “Now, there are different methods to accomplish Wind Wall. For many, it begins with Wind Blast, a surge of power that explodes outward and must then be tamed by sheer will. For me, it’s different. It’s a combination of my power and the air around me. There’s no explosion of energy, but a sudden build up in tension… as if every particle in my vicinity is growing impossibly taut. That’s the best way I can explain it. Yet for others, Wind Wall is nothing but Wind Draft with an upward direction—not so much a wall as a deviation mechanism, though still effective.”
He stretches a hand toward the cliffside. “Be my guests.”
