Kilasha caught a thermal and rose nearly a hundred feet before she could even blink. A crosswind buffeted her into a sudden calm pocket. The rain pelted her while she floated, her silks stirring a little in the air, and she rested. With deft fingers, she rebraided her hair, the long brown strands appearing glossy black in the driving rain.

“Kilasha! The tide is turning!” Setira called from yards away. “We’ve routed the storm!”

The sizzling flash blinded Kilasha and the accompanying boom and crack deafened her.

“Setira!” she screamed, her voice hardly audible over the rain.

A flash of green fabric drew her eyes and she watched Setira’s body fall. A high cackle ghosted toward her on the wind and rage exploded in her breast.

Heedless of her own safety, Kilasha threw open her shields. She Quested far below them, in the little hills and valleys the gypsy Harpies infested. Then she Found it.

“Kilasha!”

Council Secretary Moarven’s cry was lost in the wind and rain as Kilasha shot forward like an arrow out of the heart of the storm. Her silks whipped around her, the brilliant reds and blues muted by rain and mud. She angled around the flanks of a tall hill and saw the cottage below her.

“There!” She pointed, with hand and Othersense, and felt the static electricity erupt in the air around her as she pulled the lightening.

“Kilasha! It is forbidden!” Moarven’s warning shout was lost in a sudden deluge.

Kilasha’s only warning came when her ears popped. Her collarbone tingled. Then a searing flash of purple-white stabbed out of the sky above her, obliterating the building below in a cloud of splintered wood. From this height it look like matchsticks thrown from a tree.

She had a moment of satisfaction before the lightening retaliated. A small finger of electricity slapped sideways almost lazily, catching her finger. She felt her heart stutter, stop, and stutter again. And then she was falling. She heard Moarven’s cry above her, receding horribly fast.

She never felt the ground.