Fated

Mages have a tendency to over-rely on their magic. It’s human nature; if you have something that works ninety-nine per cent of the time, you tend to forget about the hundredth. Khazad’s eyes were telling him that there was nothing there, but his magic was telling him that there was something just over the edge, and it was his magic he trusted. He moved forward, his movements quick and jerky like a bird, his shield flickering as it dimmed the light behind him. He reached the very edge of the roof and stared down at the wand lying in the gutter.

I came up behind Khazad and shoved him hard in the small of the back. His shield stung my hands as it took the blow, but while kinetic shields can spread out an impact, they don’t do much to stop it. Khazad went flying over the edge with a shout. There was a crash as he hit the balcony, followed by a satisfying crunch.

I picked up the wand and dropped it back in my pocket, then turned and walked away, humming to myself. I didn’t bother checking to see how badly Khazad was hurt; he wasn’t going to be chasing me any more, which was all I cared about. I walked back to my roof, sat down and waited.

A couple of minutes later, something tickled my ear. I turned to see a semi-solid face made of swirling air just a few inches away, looking at me with wide eyes. ‘Boo!’

To ordinary eyes Starbreeze looks like air – that’s to say, invisible. To a mage’s sight she looks like an artist’s sketch done in lines of glowing vapour. Swirls of air magic make up her body, her shape changing from day to day depending on her mood. Today she was in one of her favourite forms: an elfin girl with short hair, big eyes and pointed ears. ‘Scared you!’

Starbreeze’s full name is about half a page long and lovely to hear, the sense of a rising wind over a snowy hillside, carrying with it the hint of spring, with the first stars of night appearing in the sky above. When I first met her I tried to remember it, until I found that she changes it every time she’s asked. Now I just call her Starbreeze like everyone else. Starbreeze is an air elemental, a spirit of wind. She can fly or shift her form with no more effort than it takes you or I to walk. She can feel the movement of a butterfly from across a field, hear a whisper from halfway across the world. She’s ancient and timeless. I don’t know how old she is, but I think she might have been born at the time the world was made.

She’s also dumb as a sack of rocks.

‘Hi, Starbreeze.’

‘You’re different,’ Starbreeze chirped. Then she brightened. ‘Pretty cloak!’ She dived right into me, turning into a swirl of wind around my clothes, sending my cloak billowing out, then starting to tug it over my head. ‘No!’ I said, pulling it down.

‘Give me,’ Starbreeze called, her voice coming from somewhere around my back.

I took a firmer grip on the mist cloak. ‘No. You’ll lose it.’

Starbreeze reformed behind me, and I turned to face her. She was pouting. ‘Won’t.’

‘Yes, you will. You’ll forget all about it.’

‘Won’t.’

‘What happened to the last thing I gave you?’

Starbreeze looked vague. ‘I forgot.’ She brightened. ‘Air stone!’

I sighed inwardly. Starbreeze has seen my cloak a dozen times, and it goes clean out of her head every time I’m gone. I suppose I’m lucky she can remember ‘Alex’. Actually, I’m lucky she remembers ‘Starbreeze’. I reached into my pocket and took out one of the tiny pieces of silver jewellery: a brooch, shaped like a butterfly with wings spread. Starbreeze hopped forward, eyes wide. ‘Ooh!’

‘Do you like it?’

Starbreeze floated up into the air and spun around so that her head was pointing down at the roof. She hung upside down with her chin cupped in her hands a few inches from the brooch, stared at it with rapt eyes for a few seconds, then nodded eagerly.

I closed my hand over the brooch and lowered it. Starbreeze’s face clouded over. ‘Bring it back!’

‘I’ll give it to you,’ I promised. ‘But I need you to tell me something first.’

‘Okay!’

Starbreeze doesn’t rest, doesn’t sleep and can hear anything carried on moving air. It’d make her the perfect spy, except that most of what she hears goes in one ear and out the other. ‘I’m looking for a Precursor relic, a new one.’

‘What’s a relic?’ Starbreeze said curiously.

‘A powerful magical thing. It would have been found a week or two ago.’

‘What’s a week?’

‘The Council would have been looking into it. They’d have been guarding it, maybe setting up some kind of research team.’

‘What’s the Council?’

I sighed. ‘Anything interesting in this city? Anything with magic?’

‘Oh!’ Starbreeze brightened. ‘Men came to the place with the old thing. Tried to open it up.’ Starbreeze giggled. ‘Lightning man came. It was funny!’

I frowned. ‘Which men?’

Starbreeze shrugged. ‘Men.’

‘Where did they come to?’

‘Blue round place.’

‘Is there anywhere else in this city where men have been doing something magical with an old thing?’

‘No, no, no.’ Starbreeze swirled around my head, rolling over in the air. ‘Go there?’