"Winds and Their Riders"
I don’t have so much of a story as moments that I will always remember. I would guess many people’s lives are like that: a collection of memories, of moments. They’re worth remembering for the hard times. For when you’ve fallen too far and that ever-present light of hope has dwindled to a glimmer, and you can’t remember what it feels like to have the sun on your skin or dirt between your toes.
Where to start?
My father told me that stories are the most important form of art, because without them we have no way of learning from others mistakes. After many of his long adventures, he would sit the four of us round the hearth and tell us a story. Some were heroic, others gripping and tense, but most were sad. I’m afraid mine may be more of the latter.
But…not this one. From when I was young, my father taught me to stand back up. Not how to win a fight or how to convince someone against their will, but to stand up when I’ve fallen down. It didn’t seem like the most useful skill at a time where my siblings were nurtured toward oration, or hunting, or even how to bake bread.
But I can say looking back that my father had a plan for me. And it began with getting up. Because, as my father said, there’s not much you can do with your butt on the ground.
That to be said, I never won a fight against my brother.
Most siblings fight with words or fists, but my brother Theo and I fought with wooden sticks and strict rules. You’ve got four limbs, and if one gets hit twice with the stick it’s “out”. You can’t use it and must hold it behind your back or not stand on it. Our father taught us this game once we were both old enough, say, when I was ten and Theo was nine. It was good practice, and I blame whatever semblance of skill I have in the sword on the long evenings and sometimes nights that we spent duking it out. Against all odds, I always found myself on the losing end.
That’s not to say I never got close.
One such time was eight years ago, when I was eleven. There were pads on our sticks, sweat dribbling from our necks and over our arms, and a redness in both of our cheeks. It was the middle of summer, and even up on the mountain it was blisteringly hot. Jets of steam sprayed from fissures in the rock, laid by our ancestors years before.
As one would expect, neither of us were wearing shirts.
That made it particularly obvious when one of us got hit. I had fallen backward upon blocking one of Theo’s vicious strikes, and he pointed his stick at me and laughed. That perturbed me.
My knees felt like mud, but I jumped to my feet and returned my practice sword to guard position. “Ready…” I started.
“Go!” Theo said, and lunged at me with that grin he gets when he knows he’s going to win. He was only ten at the time, but that didn’t stop his ego from growing at least three years in age.
I flicked the jab away and swung at the meaty part of his sword arm. He caught my wrist with the opposite hand, then walloped my forearm with his sword. I nearly dropped my weapon in surprise, but Theo just hopped back and pointed at it. “That one’s out. You gotta switch hands!”
“I know,” I muttered, and switched the sword to my left hand. I’ve never been much good with my off hand; Theo knew this. As I tested the sword’s balance in an attempt to stall, I complained, “How are you so good at this already?”
We played every weekend when Mom didn’t have us out chopping wood or hand-planing beams of the stuff for her projects. But when I wanted to take a break for the Season of White, my brother had taken my practice sword and found opponents elsewhere. I already knew the answer to my question.
My brother decided to be snarky. “It’s easy,” he said, hopping from one foot to the other, “Just pick an open spot and swing.”
I grumbled and fell into a guard stance with my sword held at an angle. Our father had taught us three stances: guard, offense, and balance—each with different strengths and weaknesses—that we were supposed to test out and learn the flow of.
Always the rebel, my brother created his own. He held his sword in both hands, crouched low, and smiled. “Come on!” he said, “It’s no fun if you don’t try and attack me too.”
That got me. I ran at him, tried to feint with an attack from above, then switched and cracked my sword against his right sword arm. He stepped back, stunned, and nodded in confirmation of the hit. We continued.
Theo swung at my new sword hand and I bat it away. He swept my feet, and I jumped and jabbed at his receding hand. He flicked it away and snaked out for my shoulder. I blocked high, swung low, and caught Theo’s right leg on the meat of the thigh with a thwack.
When I stepped back to confirm, he tried to swing the sword at my outstretched hand. I hopped away and pointed the tip of my sword at him. “Hey! Right leg?”
Theo grit his teeth, regained his composure, and nodded with a frown. “Right leg.”
I dashed forward as soon as his stance was up. Theo blinked, frozen for just a second, then swung wildly toward me. I bent, slid, and tripped Theo with my sword as I passed. He tumbled, rolled to his side as I tried to strike, and recovered.
When he rose, he wasn’t smirking anymore.
I dashed at him, and we danced left and right. Theo jabbed at my arm, I cut at his leg. At some point he got in another hit on my arm, but we didn’t stop fighting. We were panting, fuming, letting it all out without hold of stances or rules.
When we got hit, we didn’t put the limb away. Arms that were long gone swung out, grabbing for a fistful of shirt or hair as we fought with everything within us. I thrust at his arm, but he flicked it down, then drew a strike across my face. It caught my cheek, but we kept going.
I tried to hit his side, but rather than try and avoid it Theo got even closer. I hit him, but up in my face, he snarled and rammed the hilt of his sword into my stomach.
It knocked the wind out of me. I folded over his sword, coughing, and he threw me to the ground. I ate a mouthful of dirt, rolled, and dropped my sword.
Theo stood over me, looming. “Alright,” I said, and held up my hands. “I forfeit.”
Now, children get angry over silly things. We had both gotten pent up at times, frustrated at each other for a thousand unresolved reasons. Little cords, never untied between brothers. That’s the sort of look I expected in my brother’s face: one of frustration. But I still remember the look in his eyes. They were cold—hollow, almost—as he panted. He cocked his head to one side, chin up.
Then he stepped away and flicked some sweat at me. That imperceptible look was replaced with a grin. “I accept.”
I exhaled, sat up, and the two of us laughed.
Two hours later, we sat around the hearth with my father, nursing bruises and listening to a verbal beating. Our father heard of how we broke the rules and went at one another without restraint. “That’s how you get hurt,” he said, pointing at the blossoming bruise on my stomach. “Stick to the rules, and you’ll learn. They exist to keep you safe.”
But for a moment in the rush, I had seen my brother look at me like an equal. The moment at the end, I buried until later. But in the middle, it felt like that was how it was supposed to be: standing toe-to-toe, fighting for all we were worth. I don’t know how long it’s been since Theo looked at me like that: like his brother, like family, like a rival.
After the chastisement, my father—always keen to pair justice with encouragement—still asked how it went. We both excitedly told him our version of the fight as he slowly and liberally applied whiteberry paste to our bruises. The stuff is fantastic, if you’ve never used it. Numbs the pain with the added benefit of a slight healing effect. Great for kids who often return home with bumps and bruises.
Mirai probably used more than the rest of us combined.
But that’s beside the point. This was when my father first decided to talk to us about Veins. Theo and I had both seen them before around Rakuken as they were used by Wargraves, farmers, and of course, my father. We had asked both Mom and Dad, and had gotten the surface-level explanation. Magic, and something out of our reach. They were the stuff of heroes.
This was where my love of them truly started[1] . Later I would see feats of my father’s abilities, and marvel at the intricate workings of Lev’s contraptions or Rane’s relics, but sitting there, surrounding the hearth, was where the fire was lit.
It started when my father had finished applying the white paste on me, and was adding the finishing touches to the pelt on Theo’s leg. “How can I get powers like yours?” I had asked.
My father had been cooking a hare on the fire of the hearth, and turned the spit slowly with one hand as he handed the jar of paste to Theo. “A Vein, you mean?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I keep losing to Theo, and I want to be pick him up and throw him over when he cheats.”
“Hey!” called Theo, but he was grinning.
Kai smiled and flipped his hand palm up, gesturing the two of us over to look. He drew a triangle in his palm, stopping at each of the points. “There are three, one for each of the states: solid, liquid, and breath.”
“That’s everything, isn’t it?” said Theo quietly.
Kai held up a solitary finger. “Everything physical. Parts of the world do not fall under a state, such as light and fire, that we cannot control. Beyond the things between, Veins have the ability to interact with all matter, so long as it is within their state.”
That’s when I asked the question that had been burning in my chest for too long: “Which one do I have?” I’ve mentioned that Kai had a Breath Vein, though I assume you already knew that. My mother was a Vein as well, so it stood to reason that I would inherit one.
“We don’t know yet,” said my father. “Part of the decision is up to you, should you have one. The Choice comes when your Vein awakens, where you will decide between Foundation or Control.” My dad rolled up his sleeves and held out his arms. Theo and I scooted in as a green light shot through his veins, running up from his fingertips to his shoulders. “I control Breath, and as such…”
The glow in his arms grew, and the previously still air of the living room surged toward his hand, drawn to the light. My father supported his right arm on his knee as it lost muscle, growing thin and gaunt. In response, the wind did not just run toward his, but started to circle around it. In that moment, it was like a miniature storm had grown in our house, localized around the hearth. The wind buffeted the fire and tossed our hair.
Theo and I laughed, feeling the wind. Little wisps of light from my father’s veins trickled out and mixed with the wind, which I now know was him imbuing it with a little of his Identity, giving the wisps a piece of himself. In this way, they were visible to Theo and I for just a moment before they slipped back away into the realm of the invisible.
But for that short moment, I saw them: the winds dancing and playing to some unheard melody. They were so free in that second, in that heartbeat, that I captured the memory of that day with both of my tiny fists and never let it go.
When my father released the wind, he sucked in a deep, extended breath. “That’s the consequence,” he said, breathing hard. “Every second uses your breath. Thus the name.” He smiled, and droplets of sweat glistened on his forehead.
Theo and I were utterly enamored with the concept. We asked him everything, receiving in return how Breath didn’t just control the air, but all gasses, and how it would trade the fundamental force of life, Vis, for control. We asked about Founding, and how they grow matter, and any other question that had been itching to be asked.
We didn’t understand most of the answers, and wouldn’t for some time. But I was focused on one thing: how I could, as fast as possible, become a Breathbinder like my father. So I could see those eddies on the wind again, and perhaps ride with them on the currents of the mountain.
And, of course, so I could beat my brother.
There’s chapter 3! It’s fun to write both first and third person,
because I get the best of a more flexible and intimate style with first
person, as well as an easier book to write with third. I’m definitely
more comfortable with third person, though.
