Page 91 of The Wind Dancer
The next strike flew toward a cultist’s chest. The hand in which I held my dagger went straight through the body. I was already moving again, pulling my hand out in a smooth motion.
I absorbed the essence faster than I could spend it. The creatures of the Mother of Change screamed in infernal pitches that felt like they were cracking my skull. The pain only made me angrier and faster.
The bastards were trying to kill me, but they were slow. They were too slow and died easily, giving me their essence, which I immediately burned in the crucible of my soul.
I let out a scream, all sorts of emotions mixing in it. The delight I felt from my new abilities, the fury of the battle, thehatred I felt toward the creatures, and the constant dull pain I had carried in my heart since the death of my mentor. The air became an invisible blade that cut everything in its path.
I danced in the air currents that I had created. Daggers flashing like lightning, and the air tearing the creatures’ bodies. Their flesh turned into minced meat that went flying in all directions.
I was shaking, but I didn’t stop. Something gnawed at me from within. It whispered, carving something into my bones.
“More...”something inside me breathed.
“I decide when I’ve had enough,” I hissed back.
But that was a lie. Because I could no longer feel where my will began, and the wind ended.
I shredded the cultists one by one. One of them tried to summon something, so I tore his face off before he could finish drawing the unholy symbol in the air. Another tried to run, but I grabbed him. The air obeyed my will, becoming a whip. It wrapped itself around the fool’s neck, and with a jerk, it snapped it.
They screamed and died, giving me the distorted essence that was stored in their bodies.
One creature bit into my shoulder, and I drove the arm I had torn off a cultist through its flat skull. The blood spilled down me like a mantle. I didn’t feel any pain anymore. I just felt the wind guiding me.
I felt like a storm that cleansed the world.
Lightning ran through my body, attacking anything that dared to approach me. With a step, the wind condensed into adisk that went flying at the last three cultists, slicing through all of them. Their bodies didn’t even hit the ground before I absorbed their essence.
The wind in my chest subsided. I felt that we had cleared this place.
And I looked at my hands in horror. In the gaps of my tattered sleeves, I could see pulsating black veins, distorted essence flowing through them. There was too much of it, and it was trying to burst out. Or burrow deeper inside?
“Good job, descendant. Now halt the cursed Distortion magic. A cleansing ritual is being loaded into your memory. It will let you be cleansed from it, but you must hurry, otherwise you will join our dead relatives.”I didn’t understand what it was talking about, but something inside told me that it would be better if I didn’t know and just follow the instructions.
I walked across the blood-soaked floor. Fouche was waiting for me.
Interlude
The ancestral temple was quiet and peaceful. The thin wisp of incense smoke curled in the air, clinging to the carved wooden beams, to the ancient nameplates that Lin Jiyun could no longer read. She remembered their shapes, but not how they sounded. The memory was burned away. Only shadows and lingering pain remained.
She stood in front of the altar, her fingers clutching three thin incense sticks. The embers flickered, reflecting in her pitch-black eyes.
“Mother, father, brothers...”
Her voice did not waver. But inside, she was a blaze from the memories. She was seven years old when they arrived.
She woke up to screams.
The wooden walls of the family estate were ablaze. Somewhere nearby, a dying servant was wheezing, stabbed by a curved knife. The maid hid her under the bed and told her to be silent to avoid a terrible fate. Lin Jiyun froze under the bed, pressing her palms to her mouth. Watching through a crack, shesaw a huge islander with a shaved head take the sword from her older brother’s hands and plunge it into his stomach.
“Leave no survivors! Cut down anyone you see here!” The cold voice of the islander commander still haunted her nightmares.
Blood flowed across the floor, drenching the patterned carpets that her mother had so lovingly made. Lin Jiyun didn’t cry. She watched as her mother was killed, her father decapitated. Her house slowly going up in flames.
She only survived because the maid’s corpse had rolled on top of her, hiding her from the assassins. She lay there until morning, until the smoke burned her lungs and the blood dried on her.
“Grandmother.”
The voice of Zhao, her grandson, brought her out of her memories. He stood a little behind her, tall, handsome, with a face that was equally cold and ruthless. The tattoos on his face practically gleamed like silver. He was a Moonface, like his dead father.
