They ran down the stone path to the large freight elevator which constituted the Path of Ladies on Tib’tai, just in time to see an angry bolt of lightning strike it directly. The machine gave out a series of eerie wheezing and whirring noises, followed by a few cracks and sparks and went deathly silent. Linda threw a desperate look around the others’ faces but only found more shock and defeat plastered all over them.

“Is Fye really doing all this?” The girl asked, almost shouting to be heard over the roaring thunder surrounding them.

“Not completely voluntarily”, the Reverend Brother responded. “For the first time in his life he has established a connection to his Source, but he has no control over it yet.”

Wint and Lee exchanged looks which were a bizarre mix of bewilderment and anger that Linda couldn’t quite decipher. All she knew right now was that this thunderstorm had to be the most terrifying display of raw power she had ever witnessed in this strange world. Yet, in its own unique way, it was beautiful.

“Is there another way down?” She screamed over the storm again.

“Not anything that would be safe in this weather, I’m afraid.” The Reverend Brother shook his head. “We have some smaller emergency gliders, but their metaline bodies and electronics would be like magnets for the lightning - we would be fried in an instant.”

They all fell silent a moment, as the storm raged on. Judging by where the thunder struck last, Fye must be halfway to the docks already. How did he move so fast? Linda shook her head, trying to figure something out and at that moment something so mundane yet so incredible happened, she almost didn’t catch it at first. A breeze. A goddamn simple, beautiful breeze reached them and ruffled the hair on their heads playfully, like an old friend they had no idea how much they missed. As the thunderstorm had changed altitude, the terrifying pressure around them had eased a bit and air could move freely again.

The four Wind natives shared an expressive look of relief and almost child-like elation. Linda tried to imagine what it must be like for them. They were so in tune with the movements of Air that it had permeated their entire existence and culture right down to their names and the language they used. To have had their connection to the Source dampened even for a small amount of time must be akin to someone on Earth losing a major sense like eyesight or hearing.

“Tech and electronics ain’t everything in this world, brother Ma’ala, sometimes all you need is just a little push and the Wind blowing your way.” Wint said, a large smile across her face, serving to soften her razor-sharp features.

“We still have to be careful” Lee tried to ground the windstorm’s enthusiasm in reality a bit, although wearing an almost identical giddy grin himself. “We’ll be looking at an almost five thousand matri freefall and at some point we will catch up to his Thunderstorm…”

“Yer selling yerself a bit short there, nine-tails” Wint shook her head. “Even with the two deadweights”, she gestured towards Linda and the shaman,”this would be child’s play for not one, but four powerful windstorms.”

Lee and the twins stared at her in wonder. Linda nodded to herself, a smile of her own tugging at her lips, as she realised the significance of Wint’s words. The woman had just acknowledged the Wind men as her equals, not abominations to be demonised and hunted, but fellow countrymen, versed in the same Gift she possessed.

“What ye all starin’ at?” The windstorm chided them in her usual rude tone. “Ah bet ye thought little ol’ Wint was nothing more than a Highland perv with a bit too much estrogen and a big mouth, didn’t ye?” She threw the Reverend Brother an accusatory look. “And aye, there be some truth to all that, however above all else I’m a truth seeker and a freedom fighter. So let’s all agree on simple facts, aye? Tailwinds, windstorms, Crafts and Gifts - they be just some Kriyan words - distinction without a difference, eh?”

Brother Ma’ala huffed out an exasperated sigh, but some of the tension eased off his features. The Tailwinds still had their wide grins on from before.

“Well come on, then”, Wint’s voice boomed again, as a strong torrent of air rushed over them. “We ain’t got all day to chase down our runaway Lightning child. Are we doing this Jump or not?”

Lao and Lei nodded and rushed over to the now dead elevator console. It was covered by a waterproof military-grade tarp which was light, yet durable and they pulled it off. It wasn’t designed as a paraglider per se, but in a pinch, it would have to do, so the boys gave each member of the group a piece of it to hold and busied themselves to tie its strings securely around everyone’s waist.

“Ye’ve done something like this before, then?” Wint asked as she inspected the boys’ work with barely concealed admiration.

“Mama would take us gliding over the rocks by the seaside in Balam-Tab.” Lei explained as they moved to the very edge of the terrace. He grabbed Linda’s hand in his and squeezed. “Don’t worry, big sis, though it looks scary now, the Wind will keep us safe.”

“Easy for you to say, kiddo - you have superpowers”, Linda thought to herself as she tried not to let the anxiety show too much on her face. She didn’t believe she had a fear of heights back home, but here, on the edge of the cliff, staring at a five kilometer free fall with nothing but a string tying her to a makeshift wing, she felt her newly acquired confidence falter.

No such thing in Wint’s book as a lack of confidence, of course, so before Linda could even take a breath in preparation, the windstorm threw herself off the edge, dragging them one by one after her. The girl might have screamed, but it all got blown out of earshot through the sheer force of the wind currents moving as one from all directions to fill the tarp and cushion their fall just enough, so it seemed controlled. She felt someone grab her left hand and squeeze it in reassurance, even as Lei was still keeping hold of her right one. Turning her head, she met a pair of ice-white eyes belonging to Aeris Lee.

She stared at him in awe. He looked formidable with the nine tails unfurling from his back, shifting Air masses with ease to ensure their smooth descent and with his raven hair flying behind him, he kind of reminded her of an avenging angel, or Fortune as the local lore went. The use of his Craft or Gift seemed to have transformed him from a quiet, delicate looking creature into this being of great power, not to be trifled with. No wonder the superstitions about Tailwinds being demons had stuck so well, Linda thought to herself. Still, she wouldn’t necessarily go in that dark direction to describe him - more like, what did Wint say his virgin family name meant? Something about a Wind deity? That was a much better fit from where the girl stood.

For the millionth time she wondered how she’d gotten herself into this mess. Alien worlds, super-powered beings, political strife… Were she back on Earth, she supposed this all would’ve made for a somewhat entertaining novel. Now that it was real, she just felt slow. Slow and useless. What could she do to help Fye with whatever was happening to him? Wint and the Tailwinds, Big Brother Ma’ala even - they all seemed scared by all this so apart from being the ultimate deadweight why were they still keeping her around?

Before it looked like the Ruling over sea believed she was this mythical Lightning child, supposedly sent forth by the strange beings of light to help Alaians with their Giftless women pandemic. Looking at their fast approach to the beach where the bizarre thunderstorm followed the prince like a loyal dog, Linda realised that ship had sailed. She wasn’t special, she wasn’t any form of messiah, she was just someone in the wrong place at the wrong time and even in the wrong body. The three stunning Wind men weren’t her family, they had no use for her, apart from finding a way to get their own daughter and sister back.

She was shaken out of her thoughts by the sudden tilt of their improvised paraglider. Their descent was in its final stretch before the docks and the effects of Fye’s suffocating thunderstorm made their much dreaded reappearance. Wint and Lee shared a “here we go” look and the strain of focusing all they had on maintaining the last gusts of whirling air filling the wing became painfully visible on their faces.

The landing was rough, with barely enough wind left moving to cushion the final mat’ri of their fall. That bizarre ancient instinct she had first felt in the AWA Training Center kicked in and she pulled Lee and Lei into her arms and rolled back, catching Wint do the same with Lao and Brother Ma’ala for a split second just before they hit the sand hard. The air left her lungs with a burning sensation, but she was surprised to feel that it wasn’t because of the Wind men on top of her - they were both so light she wondered briefly if they had hollow bones like birds.

As they helped each other stand, Lee faltered a bit on his feet. The God of Wind was gone for the moment, receded to the core of his being and the image of an Alaian man who’d just overexerted himself a bit too much had replaced it.

“How many small boats were anchored to this dock, Brother Ma’ala?” Wint’s voice roared over the thunder with some effort.

“No more than five”, the man yelled back as the group bolted towards the metalline platform which led to the anchored vessels.

“Looks like less than five now from how I see it…” The windstorm responded, pointing at the four small yachts which were bobbing up and down with the powerful waves stirred by the lightning storm above.

The ocean looked like it was boiling - could the small vessel have been torn off its ropes and anchor and just floated off? No, upon closer inspection, Linda realised it was indeed drifting away from the dock, but it seemed to be moving with a purpose. An angry thunderbolt roared and hit the water close enough to light up the yacht’s deck so they could all see the fiery-blond haired silhouette by the controls.

“By the Goddess, he’s moving already!” The shaman exclaimed, a defeated expression darkening his beautiful features.

Wint walked up to him and slapped a heavy hand on his delicate shoulder, nearly toppling him over.

“Ah, fret not, Big Brother, me and the Windy boys may be short ranged for this round, but am pretty sure ye got us covered.” He shot her a shocked look, which she completely ignored in her typical fashion. “We feel very lucky, ah’ll have ye know, for we shall finally witness first hand the leader of the menist movement practice what he preaches - men are just as Gifted by the merciful Goddess and all that, right? Yer a powerful water lady, are ye not? Help us board that little boat over there and tide-weave us close enough to His Highness to knock some sense into his thunder-summoning heart.”

The man blinked a few times, his expression shifting between horror and anger, finally settling on the latter. Wint had evidently found the right button to push. When he lifted his eyes again, there was a blue-green shimmer to them.

“Very well,” he said as he waved a hand in a large, circling motion and the waters calmed just enough to keep the yacht they’d set their eyes on from bobbing so much.

“But from here on out you all do as I say, especially when we get close, got it?”

******************************

Atomic force transfer… Mali knew, of course, from his school years the scientific theory behind the Gifts Alaian women possessed. He had no way of knowing how things worked on other planets, but the beings on Alaiah whose DNA had fused with the parasitic spores of the bru’ankh’ai had developed a curious mutation to their nervous system, which allowed their bio-electric field to stretch out and project itself in the outer world in fascinating ways.

Let’s take the Gift of Water and Tide for example, the thing Mali was currently struggling with, as the thunderstorm raged mercilessly around their tiny vessel. His rather uneasy task was to focus his neural impulses in such a way that his alternating bio-field would incite the waters beneath them to calm and propel their little boat forward as safely as possible. Water molecules in and of themselves are quite flexible and the bonds between hydrogen and oxy - pretty resilient, but the magic happened one level below that.

The problem wasn’t necessarily with the amount of water he needed to move, as much as the need to constantly re-adjust his force output and dimensions in which it was applied. Brute-forcing water would just get you a big splash and wet clothes. Now add to the regular three dimensions all the fine-tuning of force application and re-direction that need to happen seamlessly and simultaneously and you start to realise why very few men had ever mastered a Gift.

The female nervous system is just so much better at re-writing, reinforcing and fine-tuning pathways, biofield alternations and force output. Much like the biological powerhouses which were the bru’ankh’ai mushroom trees, a woman’s brain is built to connect and interface with nature with ease, whereas the males had to deal with their single-mindedness and hyperfocus. It was the age-old struggle between the old single and the new multi-thread processors - one could do one thing really well for a time, whereas the other could do multiple things at once, all the while never losing sight of the bigger picture.

Of course, the Herb, which was extracted from the roots of the sacred mushroom tree, helped. It served to stir up the rigid neural pathways in men’s brains and allow them to benefit from the same flexibility and speed of simultaneous, multi-tier interfacing with reality which came naturally to women. There were other ways to achieve that same effect, for sure, he thought, as he threw a sidelong glance at the East-Wind man beside him, but definitely not as fast nor as scalable.

Aeris Lee looked down on the shamans for using the Herb to awaken their abilities, because he either couldn’t or wouldn’t admit to his own privilege. The privilege of being raised in an environment where his gender wasn’t seen as a weakness or barrier to connecting with the Source of Air, but just something that required a slightly different approach to mastering a Gift. The Tailwinds had found a way to help men overcome their challenges when connecting to nature and were branded as demons and heretics for their audacity.

“Focus”, the East-Wind man said sharply, grabbing the shaman’s shoulder. “We’re drifting off.”

“Would you like to try, lord Aeris?” Mali ground his response through gritted teeth. “Going in a straight line just makes us easy targets. Circling his blind spots is the way to go. I suggest you stop worrying about how I use my Gift and start thinking about what we’ll do when we actually do catch up to him.”

The closer they got to the yacht they were chasing, the more effort it took Mali to keep the waters going in the direction he wanted. Much like Air, Water was susceptible to the effects of lightning hitting it, tearing electrons off and with them - the force output the shaman was dispersing with his Gift.

Had he known that the boy had potential, he would have never given him a taste of the potion… He spared a furtive glance at the taught faces of the group around him. Did they really not know about the prince’s condition?

Another lightning bolt hit the water just a few mat’ri away from the nose of their small yacht. Mali braced himself - he needed to be quick, but he felt dizziness sweep over him with the prolonged use of the Gift. No, not yet, he couldn’t afford to give up now.

The next lightning strike was eerily close to their vessel. Mali barely managed to steer them a safe enough distance away so the dissipating charge wouldn’t damage their systems permanently. Looking up for a moment, he felt his heart sink. The fiery blond on the other seacraft had turned away from the control panel and was staring dead at them.

“Incoming!” Wint bellowed over the loud crash of the fearsome bolt that tore the nose of their yacht almost clean off.

They spun wildly and Mali struggled to shift his focus over the migraine pulsing in his temples already. He was too forceful, so instead the large wave that lifted them up dropped almost instantly when he realised his mistake, but alas, too late, as their vessel hung helplessly in the unmoving air before tipping down and crashing into the other one’s side in the mere blink of an eye.

***************************

The storm raged all around him, but most of it was inside his chest - crackling sparks of fury which spread like wildfire to every single nerve. There was so much power! Where was it coming from? Was it always there - lying dormant inside his brain and blood? Did it even matter?

He felt so alive - his senses sharpened to a bleeding edge with every image, sound and sensation magnified tenfold. It was as if he were a forgotten old appliance which had collected dust in a corner all its life, before someone had decided to suddenly plug it into the grid. His very essence was now connected to even the tiniest electrical discharge and the sheer force of it dumbfounded him. It separated and attracted, reformed and recharged, destroyed and rebuilt.

He looked down at his hands and jerked them off the yacht’s rudder as he saw the lightning flash and twist around his forearms. He had to focus - he couldn’t afford to damage the little vessel’s systems. Not until he was as far away from here as his sudden burst of power could take him.

Was it possible for it to fade? The mere thought horrified him - how could he ever go back to how he was before, when he couldn’t even imagine breathing without the reassuring buzz of electricity through his body?

He was shaken out of his thoughts by a strange, uneasy feeling that made the hairs on the back of his head stand on edge. Someone was approaching. Several someones, his newfound intuition whispered. But how could that be? Who could move so fast?

He made some final adjustments to his course on the small command console before turning around to face his persecutors. The three moons had already started descending over the horizon, as the Day star dawn neared, which meant that the sky was at its darkest, even without the heavy clouds above. The flashes of lightning were pretty much the only lightsource around. Regardless, his eyes, which were still reinforced by the Herb’s effects pinpointed the sparks approaching on the other vessel with ease. He felt his teeth grit almost painfully, as another wave of rage rippled through his chest.

There were the dreaded whirlwinds of light - three of them, one for each of the East Wind foxes which had dragged Linda away from him. Her own struggling twin-sparks were clearly visible from the shrinking distance as well. The raging, shining hurricane which was that perverted windstorm was there as well, but he focused his gaze on the final spark. This one looked familiar, although it took him a while to understand what and who it was. It shimmered in graceful, undulating motions, but held a deep, dark threat. “Force me and I’ll drown you”, it seemed to whisper, and as he shook his head to clear the image, he finally saw the man who was standing next to the other yacht’s controls, expertly evading his lightning strikes.

Fye cursed under his breath. How in the Kriyan hells was this possible? Brother Ma’ala was a shaman. Well, apparently, he was also a tide-weaver. He wondered briefly what other dark secrets were lurking behind the veneer of servility the Children of Eni projected to the rest of the world. Perhaps he would have time to figure it out later, for now he needed to shake the other boat off his tail.

He raised his hands in the air and felt the now so familiar tickle of the lightning as it wrapped around his slender arms with an ominous crackle. The darkened clouds above his head responded with their own flashes which bombarded the water’s surface. Yet the small boat evaded and the waves around it rippled and whirred with the force of the shaman’s efforts. Oh, he was good. But Fye was better.

He didn’t want to sink them, just damage them enough to scare them off back to the shore. The thunderbolt that struck their small boat took off a sizable chunk of the nose and fried the navsys, but otherwise left them in enough of a one piece to make the trip back to the docks. Fye was almost ready to turn back to his control panel, when the shaman’s spark rippled outwards all of a sudden.

The wave that rose from the dark depths of the ocean grew and grew, picking up the tiny broken yacht like a toy. Then, just as quickly as it had appeared, it fell back down to the surface in a deafening crash, hurling the other vessel towards him in the process. There was no time to react, all he could do was watch, frozen in horror as the two boats crushed their metalline bodies together and the force of the impact threw him on his back on the cold deck.

********************************

Linda was surprisingly the first to get back on her feet after the crash, her ears still ringing from the deafening screech of cracking metalline. Her eyes darted around to ensure none of them had ended up over board. She noticed Fye lying on his back in front of the command console and rushed towards him, without thinking. She only realised this was a bad idea when she had already stretched out her hand to grab his and help him up.

As her fingers wrapped around his forearm, she felt a sudden sting which burned through her nerves and left them numb. His eyes flashed open and he bolted upright, shaking himself free of her grip, almost as though she had electrocuted him as much as he had her.

He looked like a cornered wild animal, ready to strike. A few strands of his strawberry blond hair were sticking out almost straight up from his skull and his beautiful face was twisted in anger. But what struck her the most was the change in his eyes. The specks of brown were faded and the irises looked almost completely golden, with just a ring around the edges glimmering electric blue.

Linda felt her heart sink almost all the way down to her feet, as a shudder raked her frame. She had seen this look before, way before she ever met him. The memory of that horrific nightmare kept her frozen in place, wondering if he could actually turn into a thunderbird before her eyes. Was she dreaming again?

“Fye…” She finally managed, her voice weak and strained. “What happened?”

“Oh, now she cares to ask!” The boy growled in response. “I could ask the same, lady Pearce. What happened, the East Wind whores not doing it for you any more?”

Linda felt her eyebrows fly to her hairline. “East Wind whores? What the hell are you talking about?” She waved her hand helplessly at the three black-haired men behind her. “Those people are my family - you know, father and brothers?”

“Ah, your family, right, right.” Fye nodded, a creepy smile twisting his lush lips. “You tend to be quite well connected for an outer-worlder, no?”

“Listen here, ye rude brat…” Wint raised her voice, but just as swiftly had to duck to her knees to avoid the thunderbolt which shot out from his fingers in a flash.

“No, you listen here, rapist” , the Prince shouted over the crackling of electricity around his arms as he raised one to point to Brother Ma’ala. “That guy was right - women cannot be trusted. You’ll hold my hand one minute and throw me away the next. The only reason you’re here right now is because of this, isn’t it?” He shot his fingers up in the air and a flash of lightning extended from it all the way up to the skies above.

Wint threw a look at the Reverend Brother by her side which was sharp enough to kill. Linda’s eyes however moved to Lee and the twins who were quietly moving to encircle the enraged Prince. Mistake number two. Fye followed her gaze and shot another thunderbolt their way. Thankfully, very few things can move quicker than Tailwinds.

“Where do you think you’re going, huh, Storm demons?” Fye barked at the three dark-haired men. “You think I don’t know what you are? The Herb has opened my eyes in ways you can’t even imagine.”

The Herb? Linda felt another chill down her spine. Of course! She felt an angry burst of her own starting in her chest and she vowed to let the Reverend Brother have it the first chance she got.

“The Herb has poisoned your mind, boy”, Lee growled in response, eyes flashing icy white and his tails unfurling behind him in powerful bursts of wind. “For every Insight it brings, it offers its Shadow - an Illusion. How many of those have you had already? Do you even know how to tell which is which?”

Fye fell silent for a moment. Apparently, even in his current state of warped consciousness, he was lucid enough to appreciate the threat of a Storm fox, ready to attack. Linda took that opportunity to make a few quick steps closer to the Prince.

She didn’t have any superpowers. She wasn’t a God of Wind, or a fated savior, or anything flashy like that. She was just a scared little girl from Earth who was somehow tangled up in this mess of an alien world. But precisely because she was an Earthling girl, she got it, when no one else here could.

The blind, powerless rage that comes with the understanding that even in your strength, you will be seen as lesser than, to be controlled and manipulated for others’ gain. The uncontrollable urge to self-destruct as the only way out of an impossible situation where nothing you do will ever be good enough for you to stand proud on your own next to it. She got all that. After all, it was that exact feeling which had gotten her here, in a way.

When Fye finally noticed her approaching, it was already too late. He turned around and was raising his arms to prepare a defense, lightning snaking over his skin… Too slow, she smiled, as she locked her hands around his slender waist and pulled him into a tight hug.

The pain was excruciating and it raked through her whole body in flashes of blazing heat, followed by numbing cold. Yet all she did was tighten her grip. She wasn’t going to let go, she had made a promise to herself and in a sense - to him, that night in the cabin. He struggled, sending more sparks into the barely-there space between them. “Sorry, Your Fyeness, not letting you go”, she kept repeating to herself through the agony.

The last thing she remembered before finally passing out was Lee’s face which suddenly appeared next to hers.

“Forgive me, Your Highness”, the Tailwind whispered as he drew in a sharp breath mere centimeters away from their faces, draining the air from the prince’s lungs.

Linda and Fye crumbled to the deck in unison, a mess of tangled limbs.