Maya had partially managed to get out of her dress and threw her corset across the room. ”You did what!?”

Leera sat down on the side of the bed. She couldn’t believe it herself – how easily she’d signed her life away. Still, it was for a good cause. If Claria was worthy of Aelar, she had to be an amazing woman – saving her and Quick were two lives for the cost of one. Leera had nobody to go home to, nobody that would miss her, and perhaps she’d finally earn her brother’s respect.

”After the way he acted?” Maya plucked the hairpins out of her dark locks. “After everything he said?”

“It’s done,” Leera said.

“Well, I won’t be attending your funeral,” Maya snapped and pulled the last of the expensive dress from her body. “I’m leaving right now, and you should do the same. All the guards left because someone blew out the wall of the castle dungeon… I’m guessing that someone was Bryne.”

“I’ve made up my mind.”

Maya shook her head as she quickly pulled on her normal clothes.

“I guess I’ll see you on the other side then…” she muttered and left the chamber.

Leera played nervously with her dress. She couldn’t get out of it on her own, and the maid was nowhere to be seen. She rolled back onto the bed and pressed her palms hard against her eyes until stars of red and green exploded in the blackness. Shouting came from outside the balcony, and the sound of people running in heavy armor echoed over the rooftops. She ignored the ruckus and tried to think. Had this always been her lot in life? She was a mundane, without a family or friends… well, Quick was a friend and that’s why she wanted to help him so badly.

She had always feared the prospect of growing old alone – of spending the last morsels of her life in her cabin in Jane’s Spire. At least she didn’t have to worry about that anymore. The door to the room creaked and Leera opened her eyes.

“Let’s go,” Aelar said.

Leera sat up and rubbed the tears from her eyes. She hadn’t realized until now that she was crying.

“Already?” she said, looking bleary-eyed at her brother.

He was clad in a thick coat and appeared ready to face icy winds outside.

“Your mongrel companions have started a riot. We need to make the exchange now.”

“I’m sorry,” she said and got up. “I’m sure they didn’t mean to.”

Aelar gave her a dark look and led her to the balcony. The gray waters of the ocean below stretched into the distance and met with the rumbling black clouds at the horizon. The towers and spires of the city stood like a forest of marble around them. Down on the ground, the citizens of Oceanpeak skittered around like confused little insects.

“I can’t fly,” Leera mumbled with her eyes downcast.

Her brother snorted. “I’m aware.”

Aelar took a deep breath and clenched his fists. His eyes turned misty and white. The wind rolled through his silvery hair. Leera’s stomach fluttered. She was levitating.

“Pretend you’re flying,” Aelar said and hovered next to her. “We can’t have Felthorne think you’re a mundane. From here on out, you’re the fabled Iso-bender.”

Leera could do nothing but enjoy the wind in her hair and the view of the city below. Her brother had grown powerful over the years and she now understood how he was able to lead the country in the King’s absence. Not many air-benders were able to carry other people through the air – and even though Leera wasn’t flying on her own, she felt like this was a moment to cherish. Smiling, she looked over at her brother, but his gaze held only the distant white peaks of Caeli’s Spine.

She closed her eyes and spread her arms out, and allowed herself to be carried by the whistling wind. Despite the grim fate that waited, her heart sang to the tune of the wind. This was home, she thought, the endless sky was where she belonged.

When Leera opened her eyes, she saw the ice blue capes of half a dozen knights who were flying in formation beside her. Their tabards, with the royal white eagle, flowed majestically over their chest plates, and the mirrored visors of their helmets flashed with every crack of the lightning. They all had Caeli’s fearsome Vector Sweep-blades strapped to their waists. Growing up, Leera had heard the stories about the Sky Knights – they were Caeli’s finest warriors and what every little child dreamed of becoming – she had never thought she’d see them with her own eyes.

Without warning, the knights dove with dizzying speed, headfirst toward the ground. Then Leera and her brother followed suit. It felt like all her blood was pushed into her feet and her brain was sucked down her throat.

The descent only took a couple of moments and before Leera could blink she felt the ground under her feet. She took a careful step, her head still spinning. She was standing on a smooth plateau on a snow-kissed mountaintop. Her feet made fresh tracks as she struggled to regain her bearings.

“Aelar Eirey!” a voice bellowed over thunderclaps. “It’s been a while.”

Leera looked up. A tall man with eyes of mercury stood on the other side of the plateau. His long hair burned like white fire in the wind, and his cheekbones were prominent and set high like the ledges of a mountain. In Leera’s mind, he was the very definition of a Caeli nobleman.

The man was flanked on one side by a slender woman in a tight red dress, with orange hair and onyx black eyes, and on the other by the hulking beast of a man with dark skin and shoulders that rose like boulders from his rugged frame.

“Joseph Cassius Felthorne,” Aelar said indifferently. “Do you have my wife?”

“Do you have the Iso-bender?”

“You’re looking at her.” Aelar threw out his hand at Leera. “Show me Claria.”

A smile crept up on Felthorne’s lips. Leera shuddered. There was no joy in the man’s face, and the expression seemed to have lost its original meaning. He nodded at the massive man to his right, who clenched his fists, causing the muscles on his thick arms to bulge. The ground rumbled in unison with the thunder, and an oblong stone rose out of the ground. It had the shape and size of a funeral coffin. The earth-bender’s eyes turned green as he reached out his massive hand toward the obelisk. With a loud scraping noise, one of its sides fell away, revealing a woman in a dirty white dress and a sack over her head.

The woman took a few wobbly steps out of her stone prison. She stumbled across the plateau before collapsing in Aelar’s arms. Warily, Leera started walking towards the tall man.

“Stop,” he said. “Why would I want you?”

“I-I… I’m the Iso-bender.” Leera cursed herself for stumbling over the words.

She glanced over her shoulder at her brother for support and direction.

“Do you think I’m stupid, Aelar?” Felthorne said. “I know she’s not the Iso-bender.”

A brief shadow of confusion danced across Aelar’s face before he regained his composure.

“Why did you agree to the trade then?”

“Because you’re losing your grip of Caeli anyway, Lord Eirey,” Felthorne spat. “It doesn’t matter to me if you get your precious wife back. Your days as the regent are numbered. And also, because I find it amusing that you would sacrifice your own sister.” Felthorne released a hissing laugh. “I never knew you had mundane blood in your family?”

“She’s only my sister by name,” Aelar said haughtily. “Her blood is not mine. She means nothing to me.”

His words pierced Leera’s chest like a spear. Gasping she fell to her knees in the snow.

“Prove it.” Felthorne smiled and held out his hand in a gesture of invitation. “I don’t want to soil my hands with filthy mundane blood. You go ahead and kill her. I’m sure it’ll be a weight off your shoulders… I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like, hiding such a dirty secret for all these years…”

Leera looked at the blurry image of her brother through her tears. He was hesitating. But then to her shock, Aelar handed over his wife to one of the Sky Knights. Leera looked at the unmoving form of Claria as Aelar slowly drew his blade – at least she had managed to save her.

Leera’s brother walked over to her with a steely look on his face. He was really going to do it. She heard Felthorne's laughter in the distance as Aelar lifted the blade. She closed her eyes and saw the warm smile of Quick sipping on a cup of freshly brewed morning tea. She lowered her head, exposing her neck.

Faces veiled in shifting shadows swirled around her.

“Where am I?” Leera said.

Her voice sounded muffled as if her mouth was stuck inside a glass jar.

“Where?” the faces echoed. “Where?”

“What is this place? Am I dead?”

“This is not a place…” one voice whispered.

“…nor a time,” another filled in.

“This is neither life… nor death,” said a third.

“Who are you?” Leera asked.

“We are the spirits of the mountain,” the voices said in unison. “Do you accept us into your heart and soul?”

“Why now?” Leera said. “Why wait?”

“Like the first of your kind…”

“…you have proven that your heart is pure…”

“…you have made an unselfish sacrifice…”

“…and such is the nature of the pact…”

“…from the first…”

“…to the second…”

“…to the last…”

“…do you accept us into your heart and soul?”

Leera took a deep breath. “I do.”