Rashana crouched on the top of a metal railing, overlooking the proceedings below. A group of twenty-five or thirty men stood in a knot around three prisoners, who huddled together against a pole. They were chained to the pole with heavy iron links—Rashana recognized them as an old design that had died out since the prisoner transports ended. These iron chains had been used for fastening the hawsers to the anchors. If they could hold a ship in place against the pounding surf, then her friends had no chance at escaping alone.

Perhaps these people were descendants of the penal colony residents. No one thought it was possible to live longterm on the Bridge, but apparently the men and women had survived and had offspring.

Luckily for the adventurers, Rashana had tracked them here. The halfdragon fascinated her. He was a magnificent fighter, despite that nasty trick with the enchanted net that had caught him unawares against the Adaro. Combined, perhaps Jarkoda, the Hammerhead, and the dwarf could keep her focused and powered up. She could cut through any obstacles between them and the Stormorb command tower.

Her initial instinct had been to follow Rhae. She liked Rhae the best. But that didn't seem like the wisest course of action, to follow someone just because it was the easy choice. Besides, Taras was a famous destroyer of evil. He and Rhae made a formidable pair.

Errol was all alone, though, and she'd started to follow him, but almost immediately she'd changed her mind. He was the captain. Indara believed in him. He'd be fine.

Now, as she heard the ugly threats of violence against the captives, she knew she had made the right choice. Jarkoda had paid his debt, but she felt a bond with him now.

Cutting through thirty armed opponents didn’t seem feasible, however. She was feeling weak already after pushing to catch up with the three captives. The bandits must be nomadic, or at least away from their outpost, because she couldn’t sense any concentration of memory. The fragments needed time to settle into place—time she might not have.

The scrabble of displaced pebbles behind her set her senses on edge. Rashana whirled, melding the metal fingers of her right hand into a blade just in time to catch the curved edge of a battleaxe. She deflected the attack, swinging in an arc left-to-right.

The man leaped back and reset his stance, but she tightened the circle of her swing and lunged forward with an overhead slash, cleaving the axehead off the shaft. His eyes grew wide. Rashana drove the blade straight through his mouth before he could shout out a warning. Blood gurgled in the back of his throat.He clawed at the short sword in desperation, fingers tearing on the razor edge.

Rashana bit down on his jugular, siphoning off his spirit through the flow of blood.

Power rushed through her, although he died before she could drain him completely. The Bridge reoriented itself in her mind as his memories rushed into her. Slowly, her mental map gained greater detail and clarity. The scale of the place surprised her.

She looked down at the dessicated husk at her feet. Only seconds after death, the man’s skin already looked liked old shoe leather. Death turned his face into a hideous mask, thin lips drawn into a snarl that Rashana couldn’t bear to look at without the temptation to shiver. This must be the feeling humans have when they say that their skin is crawling.

The power was seductive, even in a limited form. She’d spilled too much of his life-force before she drained him to reap the full effects, but even so she felt stronger than she had when the team had left Laurentum a few days ago—and that would have been enough for her mission if she hadn’t used up so much in the fight and the climb earlier. She’d been instructed to skim a little bit from the team every night.

Indara’s calculations suggested that Rashana could last eight or nine days away from her mother spirit as long as she consumed memory fragments to revitalize herself each morning before they struck camp. Drawing in a living soul’s raw energy might sustain her for a week at normal activity, or perhaps three days of hard fighting and exertion. This man’s energy felt more volatile than Indara’s, a jumble of information lacking context. Her spirit lusted for more.

Prowling along the rooftop’s edge, she looked down again, wondering how many of the humans she’d be able to drain before they ran in fear. Thirty had seemed like too many before; now, it seemed like too few to sate the hunger.

They are an abomination against the Light. Taras’s voice filtered through her memories. He didn’t think she’d been able to hear him from that distance, but every word had pierced her spirit like a spear thrust. He was talking about soulbound. He was talking about her.

Rashana sank down to the roof. Maybe he was right.

A cry cut through her self-pity. She bolted upright. That sounded like Maeda, or at least the way she imagined the woman might sound if Maeda even let herself feel pain. What were they doing to her down there?

Rashana crept to the edge and looked over, afraid of what she might see. Instead of the images of torture that flashed through her mind, however, she simply saw a withered old woman with her hand held toward Maeda’s head. She amplified her vision, sharpening the scene as far as her spirit would allow. A tremor resonated through her.

The woman was drawing memory from Maeda—not in fragments, but in an ever-growing stream that would soon swell to a torrent.

Rashana tore a chunk of crumbling stone from the rooftop of the ancient building and hurled it down at the crone. It shattered the woman’s elbow, cutting off the spirit drain. Maeda slumped back in a heap against the post, her face a waxy, pale yellow.

Four spears punched holes in the air where Rashana had been a split second earlier. In the space of a blink, she’d catapulted herself across an old sidestreet, crashing through the roof of a lower building. Inside, she reforged her right arm into a broad shield, and her left hand into a long, spiked whip. She positioned herself against an inner wall, facing the door, and gathered her focus, her new great shield held high. Let them come. She was prepared for the onslaught of the Bridge warriors’ might.

Outside she heard the stamping of feet and the low, terse voice of people accustomed to danger. A familiar anticipation buzzed through her. She cracked the whip, flicking the tendon-like metal in a pattern, her arm snaking in deadly flourishes.

Then the sounds faded, as though the feet were . . . running away.

Rashana ghosted forward, slipped her head out the door, and glanced around. The area was empty. Chains hung from the post, unoccupied. They were gone. She’d have to track them a little farther, try a more proactive plan to rescue them.

As she picked her way across the yard, still on high alert for an ambush, she realized the old woman had swept the entire place clean. Not a single memory fragment floated in the air or lingered on the ground. Worse, she’d somehow masked their essence trails.

Rashana would have to track them the old fashioned way.

=+=

“Repeat it back to me, child,” Thenxi said to Rhae.

“Again? Once I’ve put it in song, I don’t forget things. I promise!”

Thenxi rubbed her chin with the back of her hand. “Get it wrong, and you die. Are you so willing to risk your life that you won’t practice?”

Rhae shivered. “I’d rather stay away from all the storm spirits, just to be safe.”

“I should accompany her,” Taras said, starting down a line of argument that he had lost at least three times already that day. “My entire life has been spent fighting evil. She could ask for no better guardian against the storm.”

Thenxi shook her head. “She is not interested in petty fights. Rhae will cleanse the world from darkness.”

“There’s a lot more to the world than your little Bridge,” Taras snapped, not bothering to keep the contempt out of his voice.

Aravind rose from a crouch. “Let me tie him back up, Thenxi. He’s acting like the storm is infecting his head with all his moaning and thunderclouds.”

The two men had been sour toward each other all day. It had started when the break in the clouds disappeared and the hail storms rushed back over the Bridge. Aravind had escorted the entire creche down below the Bridge, through a network of narrow tunnels and broken paths to the metal and concrete system by the support pillars. He’d given them a crash course in how to use the rolled-up mats they all carried, which were made from some fibrous material that they harvested from seaweed.

They’d spent the morning climbing, balancing, swinging, perching; Rhae had hummed a song to drive away fear, but it hadn’t worked. Even now, swaying a mile above the earth on two mats lashed together, Rhae’s heart hadn’t stopped fluttering.

“We have several days still to go before we can be sure it’s safe to venture into Shrike’s territory,” Thenxi said, ignoring her husband’s threat toward Taras. “The Shrike usually patrols in a circuit, but it’s never a good idea to assume you know his comings and goings.”

Aravind crossed his arms. “Which is we should initiate Rhae elsewhere. What good is a key if she’s captured—or worse?”

Taras matched Aravind’s pose, sweeping his gaze back and forth between Aravind and Thenxi. “For once, we agree. It’s too dangerous to risk Rhae’s life.”

“She needs training,” Thenxi said carefully. “Perhaps she can receive instruction here in the meantime and reach a stronger understanding of the inner storm before she wrestles with the great storm.”

“So it shall be,” Aravind said, nodding. “You show wisdom in restraint.”

Thenxi smiled at him fondly. “Thank you, my lodestone. You always point me true.”

Rhae let out a long breath. “Whew! I’m glad we could all agree.” She bowed to Thenxi. “I’ll be a model student, I promise!”

Five hours later, Rhae slumped back down to the tiny floor of the hanging shelter. “Could we maybe start with a more . . . basic . . . course of instruction?”

Thenxi groaned and stretched out on the floor next to Rhae, a heavy sigh escaping her otherwise-controlled demeanor. “This is the first lesson that our children learn. You have a lot of catching up to do.”

“Maybe Taras should take the key. He’s very good at blasting things with light! Or Errol, if we can find him. He’s so smart and talented—and cute.”

“Who is Errol?”

Rhae rolled over to look at her new teacher, careful not to stab her with a spiraling horn. It was a tight fit in the little bivouac. “I hope he’s okay out there. I’m surprised you didn’t you see him in the storm when you found us. He was up ahead, bravely scouting the way, but we all got disconnected somehow and now he’s lost.”

Thenxi nodded gravely. “A scout’s life is always dangerous. We honor their sacrifices.”

Rhae shrieked. “You think he’s dead?”

“Who can say, child. The storm hunts us all.”

“But Indara hand-picked him to be our leader! He’s supposed to know the most about the Bridge of anyone in Laurentum, even though he’s only a Mako.”

“What’s a Mako? And who’s Indara?”

“Now you know how I feel,” Rhae giggled. “Everything we say sounds so different to one another. I can’t believe we’ve grown up so close together. If you think about it, we might as well be in completely different worlds.”

Thenxi sat up, regarding Rhae with eyes that turned from a clear brown to solid black as she probed Rhae’s spirit. “So young, yet so wise. I see that I have taken the wrong approach to your training. As you say, you might as well be from a different world. I cannot expect you’ll take the same path as our children. There is another way, if commanding a storm spirit is beyond you right now.”

Rhae bounced to her feet, swaying on the unsteady surface of the tent floor. “I knew you would come up with something! You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met. I hope I’m just like you when I’m old.”

Aravind snickered. “She is quite old.”

Thenxi laughed alongside her husband. “We’re both old. That’s why the children have to listen to us.”

“You think she should speak to the Mother.” Aravind spoke quietly, a question lingering in the words.

“You disagree?”

“No, but I fear for the outcome if she should fail. It is the only way forward; I must put the fear from my mind.”

“We’re of one spirit, then. I will take her Below. Pray we return with our souls intact.”

Rhae scratched her horn. “Do we have to go right away? I wouldn’t mind lunch!”

“Tomorrow, child,” Thenxi said, coughing and covering her mouth. “We have much to do before we go, and you still need your wings.”

“Wings?” Rhae echoed. She clapped in excitement. “I’m going to become a fairy!”