Eldin raced along the berth deck as the wailing sirens spurred him on. Dressing as he ran, he flew past sailors and civilians leisurely going about their errands. Nobody but him was in such great haste, for the alarm that currently sounded was intended only for Windchasers such as himself. Three long blasts and two short ones repeated five times meant only one thing.

A windstorm was approaching the ship.

The first in four days! Eldin's laugh echoed in the corridor as he sprinted through it. He had grumbled from boredom all of yesterday, wishing for a windstorm to come, and now, it seemed the winds had answered his prayer. Those loud sirens were the best sound in the world to wake to.

Taking the steps up the companionway three at a time, Eldin gained the main deck, then hastened up the aftercastle and then to the Windchaser platform at the transom. He was still tugging his windsuit on when he arrived, breathing heavily as if he were late and had to rush, despite being—as always—the first one there. With some moments to spare until the others arrived, Eldin stepped to the edge of the platform.

There, he gazed down at the tops of the clouds beneath him.

Those clouds raced past as the airship, Ventus, cut through them, propelled by the energy of the very windstorm he—as a Windchaser—was tasked with capturing.

Soon, the others began to arrive—four, excluding him. Eldin turned about to watch them assemble, each Windchaser uniformed in a replica of his own: a black, skintight bodysuit with canvas flaps that stretched from the forearms to the hips, much like bat wings.

"First again?" came a voice. One of the Windchasers, a tall, sneering boy his own age, stepped forward from the group, addressing Eldin. "Do you sleep out here or something?"

"Only the nights I don't sleep in your sister's bed, Veric." Not that Eldin had ever done more than exchange a few polite words with Seri, but he knew Veric's overprotective love for his sister was a fine weakness.

Veric flushed with anger, taking the bait as always. He stomped over to Eldin until they were but inches apart, trying to appear intimidating with his superior height. He made a show of resting one hand on the hilt of the saber at his waist. "You want to take that back?" he said in a low growl.

Eldin met Veric's leer with a stony stare of his own, uncowed. "No," he said.

Veric thought his size and the fact that he was one of the best Windchasers on the ship merited him a higher status than others, but that logic, already faulty, meant nothing when the one person who made a better Windchaser than Veric was Eldin himself—and Veric knew it, hence his perpetual animosity.

Eldin took the rivalry in stride, confident and comfortable with his greater Windchasing skill and sharper wit. Veric would never be more than a nuisance, and if Eldin were being honest with himself, he rather enjoyed the feud at times. A bit of competition kept things interesting.

After Eldin's casual dismissal of Veric's threat, they maintained the stand-off for a long, silent moment, eyes locked, until Veric, giving up the fight, turned from Eldin and stalked away with a huff, shooting harsh glares at some of the other Windchasers who had been smirking over the exchange. Unlike Eldin, they buckled at once under the threat of Veric's temper, who still kept a hand on his saber. He was the only Windchaser to wear one during hunts. Eldin knew he was supposedly fairly skilled with a blade, but suspected he wore it mostly to intimidate other people.

A new signal thundered across the ship. One long blast, followed by two short ones: Prepare to bank to starboard. The Windchasers lined up along the rail of the platform, and shortly after, the airship slowly turned ninety degrees. They were now on a perpendicular course with the direction the windstorm was traveling. Soon, those paths would cross.

Eldin looked to his left, where he saw Davir, a short, young rookie with close-cropped black hair, clutching the platform's rail with a grip that could crush stone. He was staring sightlessly down at the clouds. Sweat was streaming down his face, despite the constant chill of such high altitudes.

"Hey," Eldin said to the boy. When Davir didn't respond, or even seem to acknowledge he was being spoken to, Eldin elbowed him softly in the arm.

"Huh?" Davir said. "Oh, what? I'm sorry."

"Don't be nervous," Eldin said. "You trained for this, and you're good. I've watched you."

"You have?" The boy's eyes widened, likely amazed and proud both to be complimented by his captain.

"I like to keep an eye on my team." Eldin then clapped the boy on the shoulder. "Just a few more seconds. Ready?"

Davir nodded, then loosened his grip on the rail—still clearly tense, but relaxed enough now that he likely wouldn't panic out there. That would have to do.

The first gusts of the windstorm reached them. Those outlying winds were too weak for the Windchasers' purpose, and too far from the target besides. But they grew stronger as the heart of the windstorm drew nearer, and in just a few seconds, the rail lowered into a compartment in the deck, indicating permission to begin the pursuit.

Without a sliver of hesitation, Eldin leapt head first off the platform, straight into the windstorm. He plummeted for just a second, spiraling once before raising his arms to catch the wind in the wings of his windsuit, sending him soaring back up, far above the platform he had jumped from, where the other four Windchasers were taking turns leaping off the ship.

Now, Eldin was home.

His cabin on the ship was but a temporary abode in between trips back to where he truly belonged: here, in the windstorm. The winds danced around him, cradling him, filling his wings and propelling him weightlessly into the air. He rotated his body to catch the wind at a different angle and veered right, then left, toward where he knew a sudden updraft would soon shoot up from below. He caught that updraft, and it sent him soaring skyward at tremendous speed. At the apex of the ascent, he drew his hands close to his body to close his wings, then fell in joyous free fall for several seconds until spreading his arms to catch the wind once more and glide expertly in slow circles. He laughed his truest laugh, never happier than where he was right now.

He soon stopped in midair, hovering in place. It was an advanced technique, requiring a complete understanding of the pattern of a windstorm. For the direction and strength of the winds weren't random at all. The storm was vaguely spherical in shape, with the winds revolving around the center point in layers. There were several hundred different gusts of wind traveling at once in a windstorm. If you knew where you were in the three-dimensional space of the storm, and had studied the wind patterns, you could know when a particular gust would come, and from which direction it would blow. Then, to hover in place, you needed to perform the subtle movements that were required to catch that gust in such a way as to remain airborne, yet without any movement in any direction. Only he and Veric had managed to master the skill.

Eldin watched as the Ventus sailed away from the windstorm, giving the Windchasers the space they needed to work and avoiding the dangers of the storm at the same time. She would prowl nearby, awaiting their return with the spoils of the hunt.

Back to work, Eldin thought. He hovered for a short time longer, calculating in his head where exactly in the windstorm he floated—and more importantly, where within it his target hid. If I'm right, then... He looked up and to the right, where he should soon see...

"Ha!" Eldin whooped aloud. It was just a flicker of movement, a brief glimpse of something tossing about in the winds, but he was certain it was his target. Eyes as sharp as a cloudhawk! He angled his body and arms to catch an oncoming gust and zipped away. He closed the distance fast, and soon, he saw it with perfect clarity.

The windstone.

It was a small chunk of rock, roughly the size of a marble and shaped about the same—though it wasn't perfectly smooth. Instead, it was jagged, with sharp, uneven edges. In the sunlight, it glittered a brilliant green, making it easier to track—for indeed, its small size required a keen eye to spot.

The windstones possessed some strange magic, fueling the storms by producing the very wind that carried them along. It was Eldin's job to catch the windstone and return it to the ship, where the engineers of the Ventus were able to harness the power of the wind it produced—known as purewind, for it had strange properties normal wind did not—to power the engines and keep the ship in the air.

The Windchasers bore a heavy responsibility. Without the windstones, the ship couldn't fly, and if the ship couldn't fly...

He peered down at the clouds. As always, they were thick enough to obscure what lurked beneath: that dreadful, nightmarish, hair-raising—

Eldin abruptly stopped, hovering in place, distracted by his thoughts—and an ancient memory. The other Windchasers—besides Veric, who had trailed behind—had caught sight of the windstone by now, and a couple of them began to make passes at it. This was the toughest part of the job, for the little marble-sized stone bounced around so erratically in the wind, one required a swift and accurate hand to snatch it during a pass. Even now, Leiral was recovering from a failed attempt, returning to a circular glide nearby. Marik followed just after—he, too, unsuccessful.

Eldin refocused after his momentary distraction, but still felt no great rush himself to fly in for an attempt. Sure, he loved his status as top Windchaser—mostly because it pissed Veric off—but he was humble enough to give his team their chance. Veric was the one who considered the entire thing a competition, but to Eldin it was mostly about being out in the winds. Indeed, he had spent more than one chase simply dallying in the storm, barely even paying attention to where the windstone was, simply to enjoy his time in the air.

Eldin spotted Davir circling above him. By the look on the rookie's face, he was mustering the courage to go for a pass as well. Eldin decided to let him. If the kid could manage a successful capture on his first chase, he'd be celebrated as a prodigy. That would do more to boost his confidence than Eldin's reassuring words ever could.

Davir finally steeled himself and straightened his course to glide toward the windstone. Eldin watched as the boy drew closer. The kid was surprisingly fast. With a bit of confidence and experience, he'd become a fantastic Windchaser. Within seconds, Davir was right at the windstone. He reached out a hand and—

Veric swooped down from seemingly nowhere, swiping for the windstone at the same instant Davir did. Eldin had been so focused on the rookie, he hadn't even noticed Veric finally catching up to the rest of the team and hovering farther above. Veric was just a touch faster, snatching the windstone before Davir, but he wasn't fast enough to avoid a collision, and the two Windchasers slammed together hard. Veric's weight and momentum won, and Davir was sent spinning wildly in the air. This caused him to lose the lift in his wings, and he dropped like a stone.

Directly toward the clouds, and the burning orange death that lurked beneath.

Panic surged in Eldin's chest. He soared into action, catching a nearby gust with the full spread of his wings to propel him like a dart toward the plummeting boy, who was spinning so fast, he could not right himself to catch the wind. Moreover, even if he were to regain control, he was very swiftly approaching the lowermost edge of the windstorm, where the winds wouldn't be strong enough to grant him flight.

In just a few seconds of his swiftest flying, Eldin came alongside Davir and grabbed him, forcibly stopping the boy from spinning. Then he set Davir's body into the rescue position: horizontal, facing down, with arms spread wide and wings fully extended. With the boy stabilized, Eldin reached into a pocket of his windsuit to retrieve his standard-issue emergency windstone, a near replica of the one they had been chasing in the windstorm.

He gripped the windstone tight in his hand and mimicked Davir's position, then, with a mental command, he summoned a powerful gust of purewind to blast upward from below, catching both of the Windchasers and shooting them skyward again, just before they touched the threshold of the cloudtop.

Free-flying windstones found out in the windstorms produced purewind ceaselessly, but when a human made skin contact with one, that person gained control over the stone's power and could command its purewind at will—or suspend it entirely. Each Windchaser was equipped with one for use in emergencies just like this. If a Windchaser were to fall outside of the windstorm, he was expected to use his personal windstone to create his own purewind to return to safety, though Davir had been spinning too wildly to be able to grab his.

Eldin rose with Davir until reaching the windstorm, now controlled by Veric, who held the windstone he had snatched earlier. By protocol, the Windchaser who captures the windstone during a hunt uses its power to summon a steady and gentle windstorm to ferry the entire team back to the ship. Veric did so, a smug smile of satisfaction on his face as the team gathered around him in the air to ride his summoned purewind toward the ship. The Ventus, having noticed that the hunt was successful, had come about and was sailing toward them on a course that would allow the Windchasers to gently alight atop the starboard side of the main deck.

When they had done just that, "You almost killed Davir!" Eldin spat at Veric.

"It was an accident," the tall boy retorted. "And besides, you saved him, so nobody ended up hurt."

"Nobody except you," Eldin said.

"What do you—"

Eldin punched him.

The solid thunk of the blow sent Veric to the deck. Eyes wide in shock, then narrowed in anger, Veric stood up, and holding his prize—the captured windstone—he began to summon a few streams of purewind to swirl around him threateningly.

The message was clear: Veric fancied a wind-duel.

Eldin was more than happy to oblige. He retrieved from his pocket his emergency windstone, and was just about to begin summoning purewind of his own when a "Hey! Stop that, you two!" drew their attention to the two people hastening toward them across the deck: Maurius Blake, the quartermaster, tailed by a member of his staff.

Eldin reluctantly dismissed the purewind he had been building, and Veric did the same. "This isn't over," Veric said in a low voice, and, "Agreed," Eldin returned.

"Now what's this all about?" Maurius demanded when he had closed the distance.

"Nothing," Eldin said. "Just a misunderstanding."

"Well, see that your misunderstandings don't result in violence aboard the ship. The admiral won't have it. Elayna?"

The woman who had accompanied Maurius stepped forward, holding a small metal box with an opened lid. Veric placed the captured windstone inside of it, after which she closed the lid and retreated. She would take it to the engineering deck, where they stored the windstones until they were needed to fuel the ship.

Maurius looked from Eldin to Veric and back again, then said, "Captain Eldin, report to the bridge at once. The admiral has requested a word."

"Understood," Eldin said.

Maurius split another glance between the two boys, then, confident that their brawl had been averted, he turned to follow his staff member to the engineering deck. Veric departed in another direction, leaving with an ugly glare at Eldin. The rest of the Windchasers started for the mess hall to enjoy breakfast and to celebrate another successful hunt, but Eldin stopped Davir with a hand on the boy's shoulder. He waited until the rest of the group had gained enough distance to share a private conversation with the rookie.

"How are you?" Eldin asked him. "After all that."

"Well, the fall was terrifying, and my heart is still racing a bit, but..."

Eldin raised an inquisitive eyebrow at him.

The boy sighed. "But what's worse is that I feel that I've failed. Like I should've been able to save myself."

Eldin waved a hand dismissively. "Kid, you were spinning out of control. Even I would have needed a hand in that situation. Don't let it shake you."

Davir smiled, clearly heartened. "What about you?"

"Me?"

"Yeah. We got pretty close to the clouds down there. Did you get scared?"

Eldin laughed. "Nah. I've been doing this too long to get scared. It's all a matter of experience. You'll get there one day."

"You think so?" Davir asked, hope in his eyes.

"Definitely. If Veric hadn't interfered, I know you would've caught the windstone right then. You'll make it far as a Windchaser."

Davir's mouth broke into a grin of pure pride. "Thanks, Captain."

"Now go get breakfast. You definitely deserve some today."

The boy nodded, then turned around and bounded across the deck toward the companionway.

Then, and only then, when Eldin was alone on the deck, did he break.

The tension and anxiety he had been containing within him burst out of his mouth in a panicked wail, followed by the heaving of desperate breaths back in. His hands shook as if he were frigid and he had to stumble to the rail to support himself before his legs collapsed beneath him.

He had almost fallen beneath the clouds.

What he said to Davir about not fearing what lay beneath was a lie. Eldin was terrified of it. The memory that had only teased him before—while he was in the windstorm, peering down at the clouds—assaulted him fully now: A woman, with blistered skin burnt red and raw, gasping for breath with lungs that no longer functioned. She died on this very deck, a decade and a half ago, holding her seven-year-old son's hand and trying to look up at him, an impossible task with eyes that had melted in their very sockets. Fifteen years later, Eldin still woke from nightmares, swearing he could smell the scent of his mother's sizzled flesh.

She had fallen beneath the clouds.

Eldin's panic attack eventually loosened its grip on him, enough to restore control of his body. When his heart returned to a regular beat, he wiped the sheets of sweat from his face and anxiously looked around, dreading the possibility of having been seen in such a panic. The deck was clear so early in the morning, however, and so Eldin, taking a long, steadying breath, donned his mask of confidence once again and strode toward the aftercastle to make his appointment with the admiral of the Ventus.