Cryu Stormwing's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Cryu stood at the broken arch where the trespasser had jumped. Wind tore the clouds sideways. Rain came in flat sheets. Somewhere below, the dark shape that had carried the intruder was circling back. He could hear it in the wrong beats of the storm, a heavy wingstroke that did not match the wind. He went to the alcove and pulled a small iron dish from the ledge behind the crystal. The dish held a coil of black smoke, sealed under wax. His old master had left it for him. Break the wax, and the smoke would drift toward any living heat moving through storm air. It was the one tool he had for hunting a thing he could not see. He cracked the seal with a claw. The smoke rose in slow curls, thick and inky, edged with faint purple. It hung for a breath, then bent sharply east and streamed out through the arch. Cryu jumped after it. He flew low under the cloud shelf. The smoke pulled ahead of him in a thin ribbon. Lightning was still weak in his chest from the last fight, but he held a small charge ready. The ribbon curved down. It curved down again. It pointed at a black spike rising from a lower cloud bank, a narrow watchtower with slit windows lit red from inside. He had never seen it before. It had not been there a week ago. The dark shape sat folded on the tower's roof like a bat at rest. A figure stood in the open top, hood back. Purple eyes. Cryu knew the face from the seal on the cloth. Madness Everthorn. "You came fast," she said. "Good. I wanted to see you." He hovered. "Get off my sky." "Your sky." She almost smiled. "The Storm Heart is not yours yet. I can reach it before you wake it. I wanted you to know that." The dark shape unfolded. It launched at him. Cryu twisted and threw the charge he had been holding. Lightning cracked across its wing and it screamed and veered off into the rain. He did not chase. He drove down at the tower instead. Madness raised one gloved hand. A ring of thorn-marks lit around her feet. Cryu's wings locked. He could not beat them. A binding sigil. He fell past the tower, hit a cloud shelf hard, and slid. By the time the sigil broke, the tower stood empty. The dark shape was gone. The smoke had thinned to nothing. Cryu climbed back to the temple with one wing dragging. He had seen her face. He had learned she had a base within a short flight of his gate. He had also learned she could pin him out of the air whenever she chose. He landed at the alcove and set a claw on the crystal. He could not wait for a better moment. He had to move on the Storm Heart now.