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Please let him feel it Please let there be hope

I send the silent plea into the night, wishing the winds could hear it and grant my request But it isn’t up to the comes down to hi Westerly so bad

Not because I’ her breath beside ht of the world on my shoulders

I need to know If I really a Audra fro into the role everyone expects me to fill

So I concentrate on the windmill until it feels like the world disappears All sound All thought It’s justto make contact

But I can’t feel it No itch in ers

If it weren’t for the spinning blades right in front of me, I’d have no clue the wind’s even there

Epic Vane fail

I glance at Audra and watch the disappointment flicker across her face like shadows

She forces a smile "I didn’t expect that to work"

"I wish--" I start, but she waves ger the breakthrough"

I turn back to the Westerly whipping the wind An ache deep, deep inside Aler

My body craves that wind--in a way I don’t crave any of the others Like it’s a part of me, and I’ll never be co its song, tell ht in the sky with Audra, I know

I’m a Westerly A broken, defective one, but still a Westerly And I need to have a breakthrough to e, or I’ll never be complete

So I let myself hope Audra will find a way to make her fake proreat of a liar I can see the hesitation in her eyes The doubt The fear Like now As atch the elusive Westerly, I knohat she’s thinking I feel the sa our safety with it

Audra clears her throat "We’ll worry about the fourth breakthrough later Tonight we’re here to train you to protect yourself"

I can’t tear my eyes away from the Westerly It’s so close I just need one word One tiny clue to its secret language I can al windstor in front of a spout of swirling gusts soaring at least a hundred feet into the sky The winds feed off each other as they spin, stretching the funnel higher with each passing second

Audra h the winds

My jaw drops as her shadowed form shoots up the wind spout and rockets out the top She hovers in the sky, a dark angel at ho, fast and hard

She barely blinks

I hear her whisper, "Catch ently, hear my call Sweep me softly before I fall," and a Southerly uncoils from the funnel--at least, I think it’s a Southerly It feels warm, but it’s hard to tell The breeze wraps around her waist and sets her safely on the ground

"Whoa"

Audra smiles her small half smile as she whips the windslicer from her scabbard and slices the funnel to shreds The winds howl as they unravel and streak away, tearing at h as sand peppers my face

Okay, maybe windslicers are more powerful than I realized

She sheaths the blade, dusts off her hands, and turns to me "Your turn"

"Good one"

"I’iant funnel and hope I’h to call a draft to catch me--and avoid all these blades of doohter

"Okay, you’re starting to scare "

"I’h "Need I remind you that the last time I ‘practiced,’ I knockedthere?"

"Do you ever pay attention?" She points to the shadowed space between us "Do you see a funnel? Aht now?"

"Iguess not"

"Exactly First you have to create the funnel And believe me, if you can master the skill to create it, you’ll be able to catch yourself when you fall"

So to see where she’s going with this

"Okay You need to learn how to roups of drafts woven together in a specific order Making the a recipe You have to do it precisely in order to get the right result"

I resist telling her that the few times myI made were inedible black lumps