No one saw me leave the room.

I strode down the bridging walkways, and not a single person moved their head to look at me. It wasn’t anything new—my invisibility without a weave was a constant. It was something I’d gotten used to over the last few months. After living with my new identity for so long, I thought it wouldn’t bother me anymore.

After all, I had a weave now. To be seen was a choice.

And yet today, the lonely nature of my existence felt more vivid than ever. I stepped off the side of the platform and let myself fall. With a gentle nudge of will, the wind answered me even without an instrument. It scooped me up and brought me to the sky. Up, up, I went. Far above the trees and over the city.

I closed my eyes as I ascended. Weaveless, my power was at the peak of what I could muster. The distant echoes of essences were louder than ever. My mastery over my sorcery was far more potent than it was eight months ago.

With it, and with Traveler’s assistance, I would have an impact on the front lines. Enough to speed things along.

I passed the barrier and the rain batter against me. It splashed against my face, my cloak. I felt the cold faintly through my skin—the small fragment of a Name helping me retain some of my mortal senses. I smiled bitterly. That was it for all the good the damn thing did me. I opened my eyes and looked down.

Felzan shone below me, a blob of blue leaves and firelight in the storm-ravaged mountains. For a moment, I considered flying back down. I thought about finding Aami and asking for her help, knowing that she would follow me into the fighting if I did.

But that wasn’t needed. This was my fight, and I needed to immerse myself in it. I needed the time alone to sort my own feelings out.

Until then, she could hang out with Priscia in the city.

I pulled Vivian’s lute out of its case and turned west. The front line was thousands of miles away.

So how was I to reach it without an airship to help me?

I released a long breath, channeling my focus, feeling my control gather in my fingertips. It felt like a thousand little strings, extending out from me and latching into the essences in the sky. I felt them call against my sixth sense.

Storm. Lightning. Water. Cloud. Moonlight. Star. Night.

And the most familiar of them all—

Wind.

In order to cross the sky, I would have to be fast. Faster than I’d ever been. To go from horizon to horizon, splitting through the clouds until I reached the war I intended to end. How was I to do that?

It was simple.

I just had to play a song I’d already heard before. Back in the forests during what felt like years ago, desperately playing my bansuri, hoping to chase after a distant oud. Back then, I had played ocean, and the Fae had taken control. Changed it against my will.

Now, I would do what the Fae did. The Fae had made me into an immortal, taken away everything I had. Wherever that bastard was, I hoped he was listening.

Because this would be my challenge to him, for he was the one to put me in the shoes I currently wore.

I was an immortal. It was about time I grew into that name.

And to do it, I would play not ocean, but storm.

I strummed my lute once, and the sound roared against the rain. It smashed into the essences, pushing aside those I didn’t need. It carried my influence and latched into the wind and the clouds and the rain, grabbing it by the back of the neck and pulling, pulling it to me. I grasped it with and grit my teeth, feeling it rebel. It was like pulling a boulder. Channeling so much power at once felt like an impossible task. I felt the wind around me howl against my will, like a beast refusing to be chained. It rushed against me, blowing me away and sending my cloak snapping out from my back.

The storm intensified further. Lightning lanced through the darkness like cracks of light, and thunder boomed against my intrusion. The clouds turned dark enough to look black. It swirled and churned and growled, looming over me in plumes of angry gray.

Up here, in the sky, I was the intruder. I was the puny immortal arrogant enough to try and command more than just the breeze, but the wind, and all that was bound to it. The true essence wind.

Who was I to stand in front of this storm? To beckon at something that was not mine to call? What Name did I have to assume myself stronger than what I wished to make mine?

The world screamed its challenge towards me. The winds tore free from the strings of influence I spread through the sky. The lightning pierced through the clouds, crackling all around me, threatening to burn me into nothing. Thunder rang like a physical blow. Overhead, the massive raindrops turned sharp and angry, swirling around me like a cloud of daggers, hardening into a storm of hail that could tear steel to shreds.

My fingers plucked at my lute, desperately fighting the rampaging essences in the sky. The frayed threads of control I had whirling around me acted like a shield, blocking the hail. It redirected the lightning and softened the hammer blows of skull-shattering wind.

The sound of the world rebelling against my control was overpowering. Enough that I couldn’t even hear the thrum of my own lute. It drowned me in its shouts and screams, trying to tear me apart.

My globe of resistance shrunk. The hail cut into my skin. Lightning flashed past me and reduced the edges of my cloak to embered scraps.

I pulled at what wind I could command, using it to protect me. It wasn’t enough.

The seconds passed. My resistance shrank further.

I kept playing. I played a song I couldn’t hear, one I couldn’t hope to understand. I encased myself in my composition, my eyes closed and my teeth gritted, trying my hardest to find what I was supposed to find. Blood flowed over my skin. Burns scorched my flesh.

And still, I extended my senses. I listened to the cacophony of sounds around me, to the storm of essences that fought to batter my arrogance into nothing. I listened for the one name I needed to find.

Ṣ͑t̼̬̪̳̟̀͒̆͗͘o̰͍̭̦̒̓͆̚r̜̘̙̝̘̽̂͘͡͞m̗͕͋̔.

A whisper. To my left. I stopped playing my lute and I reached out and I grabbed it. I sunk my fingers into it like a vise. It felt like the clouds and the thunder and the rain, and the moment I latched into it, I knew the sound of its voice. I knew its every verse and its every chorus, every note and every chord.

The storm stilled, and I smiled.

Found you.

Feena sprinted down the streets of Felzan, shouting at the top of her lungs.

“An arcane anomaly has been detected outside! Please leave your houses and evacuate to Cyrilla Plaza, Verdant Park, or Braille Square!”

Every step was a bounding leap, bringing her forward several meters as the enchantment on her courier’s badge amplified her voice. Feena wove between the bustling masses, the citizens streaming out of their houses and down the main roads to gather in the city’s evacuation points. All around the city, an alarm blared to life as Ilya Iseah Summersky’s voice rang through the air.

“Please proceed towards the evacuation sites in a calm and orderly manner. A flood of ambient magic has overcharged the storm, and actions are already being taken to reinforce the city’s barrier.”

Feena clicked the heels of her boots together and leapt, the enchantment sending her straight up into one of the roofs. She ran across the tops of houses, shouting all the while. Below her, the flood of Felzanites thickened into a press of bodies and clamor, filling the air with questions and shouts.

With another click of her boots, Feena leapt again, jumping away from the Embershard District and towards the next. All over the rooftops, her fellow couriers spread the news. They shouted over the alarms and guided the scrambling masses, calming stampedes before they could start by spreading the evacuees thin. She bounded towards a group of citizens unable to join the thick stream of bodies heading towards Verdant Park.

She landed in front of the group and flashed her badge, any protests turning quiet as soon as they saw the black token in her hand.

“Taking this road will make it harder for you to evacuate,” she said, before turning and leaping up to a house again. She addressed the mass of people, making sure their attentions were on her. “Everyone! Please take Vallas Street and head to Cyrilla Square! Follow my lead!”

She ran across the rooftops at a pace they could follow, and the people scuttled after her from below. As she led them forward, a second bald and mustached courier joined her on the roof. Jayse.

“Feena,” he said, nodding towards her. “Did your employer tell you anything about what’s happening out there?”

She shook her head.

“No, I haven’t even seen her yet. The storm started going crazy as soon as I entered the city. Thank the Ancestors it didn’t catch me outside.”

“In that case, I’m glad you’re safe. I’ll take over from here. Can you cover Garran Street?”

Feena nodded and split from the courier, making for the next section of the city that no doubt needed another guide. She jumped, and light flashed from above, brighter than before. Like a second sun had suddenly sparked through the black clouds. The boom that came after crashed down from the sky like a physical blow, rippling across the barrier.

She felt her bones vibrate under her skin from the aftershocks of the strike. Rain howled and wind roared above her as she sprinted faster, looking up.

The dark clouds were churning overhead like some kind of black sea, rippling and undulating with serpents of dark vapor. They almost seemed alive—roaring, screaming, rushing towards the center of the storm in shapes that looked like open maws full of jagged teeth.

Lightning flashed again. Stronger and brighter than the last, and this time, the thunder the came after sounded like the throes of an angry god. Feena shuddered.

Just what the hell was happening outside?

A cluster of airships floated over Braille Square. Kerban stood inside one of them, staring over the masses beneath from the bridge of the ship. People were clustered underneath them, talking, whispering, and murmuring all into one blob of senseless noise that overpowered everything else. Any evacuees that didn’t fit into the square were brought aboard Kerban’s ships, squeezing into the decks and hulls of every caravel-class vessel he commanded.

“Dockmaster!” one of his engineers called, and Kerban turned to the man in question. “The ships are full, but there isn’t enough space for everyone. There are still stragglers outside the range of the protective formations.”

Kerban nodded, “How many?”

“I count around four hundred heads, sir. They’re trying to push in from outside.”

“Take them aboard the ships. Allow them to take shelter in the engine rooms.”

“But sir, protocol says—”

“—Protocol can be adjusted. Let them into the engine rooms and make sure there’s a team of engineers inside to keep watch. Don’t let anyone touch the equipment.”

With a salute, the man walked over to the ship’s runic messenger and sent Kerban’s instructions to the rest of the fleet. Immediately, Kerban watched his ships move outside, lowering ladders to allow more people in. Nodding, he approached the ship’s captain.

“Nadiah. You’re in communication with the engineers in charge of the shields?”

The woman nodded, “Yes, dockmaster.”

“Status.”

“The shields have been overcharged to protect all of the key areas in the city, sir. Three months’ worth of mana-battery power are reinforcing the shields as we speak. Should I inform the Summersky House that the evacuations for Braille Square are complete?”

“Miss Iseah has divination globes of the city active at all times. She should be aware of our actions already. Skip to informing the Riftwalker’s Association.”

“Yes, dockmaster!”

“Next, contact the—”

Boom!

Thunder exploded through the sky, and the reinforced barrier shuddered. Kerban felt his eyes widen as he dashed outside of the captain’s room to view the sky outside. Just as he left, there was another flash of lightning. It whipped across the clouds with a deafening crack!

Another peal of thunder split the sky and Kerban cursed.

First, he received news of his mother’s extended campaign on the battlefield, then his father had locked himself inside one of the listening rooms and refused to speak to anyone, and now this?

This was not the weekend he was looking forward to. Above the city, he watched the storm intensify further. Kerban could almost feel the mana flowing into it—thick and viscous, so saturated in the air overhead that the sheer density of it would’ve made it hard to breathe. The barrier above flashed a second time, thickening. Strengthening again.

Kerban shuddered to imagine the amount of resources it took from the city’s reserve to reinforce it to that degree.

Once more, another roar blasted down from the sky. It silenced the entire city, the panic and shouting from under turning deathly quiet as Felzan stared up at the clouds. The lightning was gathering now. It slithered towards the center of the storm, and the clouds compressed, turning thick enough to almost look solid.

A single globe of lightning, vapor, and hail swirled over the city. It howled with wild energy, waiting. Waiting to strike. It felt like looking down the length of an executioner’s scithar, cold and unfeeling. An emotionless thing ready to reap another life.

“Ancestors save us,” Kerban whispered, feeling the energy ramp up. Solid light pierced through the globe. Visible mana at extreme densities.

It speared out in all directions and the storm roared with a final strike of lightning that came down and—

The lightning fizzled out mid-strike. The energy dissipated. The storm stilled.

Felzan watched in silence.

The entire city looked up as the globe of churning clouds compressed further, quietly receding into itself. It compressed into a tiny, tiny ball, and it revealed what dwelled within the cocoon of storms.

It was a man. Or the silhouette of one. The shadow of a shadow, standing pale like a mirage in the sky. The figure was blurred around the edges—almost immaterial. He was faceless, blank. It was as if he was a fragment of something that mattered, existing only by the barest of embers.

And yet, in that moment, that ember caught the eyes of all that existed in Felzan. He held something bright in his hands. Something beautiful. The indescribable shape of clouds and thunder and rain.

Up above, the Pale Man stood in silence, and in his hands, he held a storm.

He took a step forward. One. Then, just like that, he vanished—

And the unending rains stopped falling over Felzan.