The wind burst free. A punch of air that lashed around her, just as it had lashed around the Windwitch. Up it flew, a single magic assigned a single task. Iseult’s feet left the earth, and with each inch she lifted—faster, faster—the more true air slipped into her lungs and acid flames pulled away. Her stomach dropped. Her ears and brain swelled, then popped, and Esme clung so tightly her claws pierced skin.

Until at last they were above the fog, above the Solfatarra. Wind thundered, a roar of sound and cold and blessed purity. It was not the first time Iseult had flown, but it was the first time she had been the one to control it.

To the west, the moon hung low upon the sky. Full, glowing, silvery against a still-darkened sky. To the east, sunrise peeked out with golden light.

Mother. Iseult directed the winds south, toward the forest and the camp. She would find Gretchya, fly her away on these winds she should have discovered—would have discovered if she weren’t always such a fool.

But instead of forest and snow, instead of Purists and tents and ruins forgotten, there were only Threads to the south. A hurricane, swirling and gathering, engorging and darkening as one by one, more Threads were sucked in.

Corlant was coming.

Lightning cracked. A black cloud abruptly formed, and winds that were not Iseult’s clawed against her. Powerful enough to tow her down, cold enough to freeze her where she flew.

There would be no finding Gretchya, and as Iseult yanked in her own winds, screaming inwardly and aloud, Fly, fly, fly, Esme wedged a vision into her mind.

Northern horizon. White-sailed machine tumbling from the sky.

Iseult flung around, her winds wobbling against Corlant’s storm. He must be stealing every magic nearby. He must be stealing magic from the very earth itself. She couldn’t see it through the icy tears streaming from her eyes, she trusted Esme. Safi was ahead; the Threadstones were near. Once she had those, she could fix this. She would fix this.

They flew toward barren winter forests dotted by evergreens and a castle of white stone rooted atop the only hill for miles: the Emperor’s hunting lodge. Safi’s flying machine had crashed nearby. Yet with Corlant scratching and pulling from behind, Iseult’s winds grew weaker by the second. She hadn’t drained the Windwitch fully, and she hated that she wished she had.

She lost all sense of time as she flew, the moon on one side, the sun on the other. She was the winds that roared around her, the winds that sparked within her. She was her mother’s words and Alma’s. No one hurts my daughter. We didn’t have to be this way.