Wind Wielder

Chapter 5 - Broken Wings and Bones

Zara woke before dawn to the harsh gusts of wind pulling at her hair.

Thesan is here. The anxious winds informed Zara, tugging at her nightgown and ripping her covers off of her. Go to him.

Zara groaned, rolling over onto her other side, sleep a blurry haze she desperately still craved. Mere hours of sleep in three days could not be healthy. "Now?" Zara whined.

A harsh pinch of icy cold air against her chest had Zara sitting up in alarm, a yelp escaping her lips.

Now. The winds seemed to snarl, an odd sense of trepidation wafting towards Zara in waves. Hurry.

"Fine." Zara sighed, standing on wobbly legs and reaching for her pack, quickly pulling out a bronze dress that was belted at the waist and slippers, donning them quickly. Zara pulled on her familiar wind wielder cloak over her shoulders and braided her hair as she left the tent into a simple neat plait, tucking it under the hood of the cloak.

As Zara exited her tent, the sky still black as pitch above her, she heard voices in her head. They were jumbled and discorded, unakin to anything she had ever heard. The language was foreign, yet the feel was familiar. Like she had heard it in dreams of old, like her body knew the sound before her mind ever did. Zara had sworn this morning she would never dare to reach him again, yet from the panicked, mournful voices in her head, Zara cast out into the dreaded ether, "Azriel?"

Zara was certain she was going crazy, and she cursed the winds as she wrapped her cloak around her tighter, shivering in the early morning. Those voices, disjoined and foreign and unrecognizable, screamed in her head. Zara found herself flinching back into her tent, until Azriels voice filled her head.

"Helion, get Helion," He breathed. His voice was full of pain, laced with utter agony.

Zara was alert in an instant, striding from her tent, though she knew not where. "Where are you? What happened?" She asked, but that odd whispering of disjointed voices spoke again, clamoring of injury and concern, and Zara could hardly even understand what they were saying. It was more of a feeling that the voices were giving off. Like intuition or subconscious thought.

"I need Helion," Azriel breathed into her mind, But it was Thesan who those odd voices in her head told her Azriel needed, not Helion. So as Zara began running, it was not for Helion, it was for Thesan, whom the winds had told her had arrived just moments before.

It took Zara a moment to find Thesan's tent. Her mind felt like a battlefield, the winds and this foreign sound fighting for dominance, yet they both screamed at her for Thesan. She had never felt this before. Not once. And as Zara finally reached Thesans tent, she swung the drapes enclosing the entrance open with reckless abandon, if only to shut up the voices in her mind.

The sight was not what she had expected.

The metallic smell of blood was rampant in the tent. The war desk in the front of the massive tent intended for group meetings had been cleared. Instead an illyrian male lay shirtless on his stomach, his ravaged wings splayed out on either side of him. Blood ran off him in rivers, flooding onto the table and dripping off its edges. Zara could see through the holes in wings, areas shredded so horribly the sinew hung from his tendons in ribbons. His back was shredded in areas so deep Zara swore she could see the white of his ribs. Yet somehow, miraculously, he was conscious, his skin an ashen gray color and sweat dripping from his brow. Zara swallowed hard. His pained face turned her way upon hearing her enter, and her lips parted. It was Azriel.

"Thesan. " Zara breathed, coming to stand at attention. Her High Lord was bent over Azriel's broken body, wiping the blood away so he could assess the damage better. He looked up at Zara, shoving his already bloodied sleeves further up his arms. Azriels eyes slid up from the table, training on Zara sluggishly and unfocused. The blood loss clearly hit him hard.