Let the Sky Fall Read Online Free PDF Page A

the chilly drafts seep through my skin. They sink into the deepest recesses of my body, swirling and thrashing for freedom.
    I have to let them out.
    I can’t explain the moment of surrender. It happens on an instinctive level, deep within my core. I just have to trust my gut. And withstand the pain.
    With a final breath, I silence my resistance and let the winds rip me apart.
    Icy needles and shredding teeth tear through me, breaking my body down cell by cell. It takes only a second to transform, but every fiber of my being will forever remember the agony.
    Mixed with the pain is an unimaginable freedom.
    No boundaries. No limits.
    I am the wind.
    My years of training vanish as an uncontrollable urge pulls at me. I yearn to take off, to follow the wind’s teasing song to the endsof the earth and beyond. The farther away, the less the pain will be, until it’s gone and I’m free.
    Free.
    The idea is so tempting. . . .
    No!
    I focus on the one thing that keeps me grounded: my father’s face.
    His lips are stretched wide with a smile. A faint dimple peeks out of his left cheek, and his sky-blue eyes have crinkles at the corners. He looks happy. Proud. I have to believe he would be.
    Under control now, I flow swiftly through the open window, thrilling at the rushing motion as I swirl around Vane.
    Time to wake up.
    My thoughts fill the whispers in the air, speaking for the wind in the secret Easterly language. But the words aren’t enough to break through. He needs more than the tendrils of my breezes wrapping around him, grazing his cheeks and tousling his hair.
    He has to breathe me in.
    I sweep across his face, waiting for him to inhale. When he does, I follow the pull in the air. Once I streak past his lips, I break free from the rest of his breath and press deep into his consciousness. To his very being.
    It’s dark and confined inside his mind. I thrash to escape, longing to push free when he exhales. The pain amplifies the tighter I’m contained, and my winds rage. I’m a tempest, battering his thoughts, trying to tear them loose.
    Wake. Up.
    Something stirs around me, a warm tingle of energy building to a hum—but no breakthrough. Not yet.
    The urge to fly away tears and pulls at me like cold, clawed fingers. But I focus on my father. He was always calm, always confident. So full of life and love. What would he do?
    He would be gentle. He would care.
    So I ignore the pain and lessen the force of my drafts, letting only the soft threadlike breezes weave through the strands of Vane’s consciousness.
    Please, Vane. Wake up.
    His body moves.
    I’m reaching him.
    Your people need you, Vane.
    I almost add that I need him. But I can’t bring myself to say those words. I don’t want them to be true.
    He doesn’t need to hear them.
    He wakes with a gasp and I retreat from his mind with the rest of his startled breath in a frenzied rush.
    Finally.
    My drafts stretch and spin, relishing the freedom as I watch him look around, his eyes wild. Feral.
    There’s only one way to know if the Easterlies have truly broken through.
    I gather the winds—my winds. Me. All the parts of myself that float on the breeze—and hover in front of him. If he’s had the breakthrough, he’ll be able to see my true form. Otherwise, I’ll be as invisible as the wind.
    Please see me.
    His eyes widen and he scrambles to his feet, shouting something I can’t understand over the roaring rush.
    But he sees me.
    Vane Weston is ready.
    With the last of my strength I pull myself in tighter. When I have a firm hold, I send the winds away.
    Burning hot pokers and battering rams and a million other pains I can’t begin to explain. The particles of my dress cool me where they cling, but there aren’t enough of them to extinguish the fire in my skin as my body re-forms.
    I stagger as I meet Vane’s eyes. His mouth hangs open from something he must have said when I was blind and deaf from the pain.
    “It’s about time,” I mumble.
    Then I