Where the wind takes cero the wind hero

The blue spark from the fire returns in a new shape, the same leak of wrongness Cero saw before. Under Tray’s hand, the rubble throbs brighter, and the stones shudder like they remember it.

Tray drives his fingers into the glowing heap and tears free a jagged gemstone. It pulses in his grip, then he slams it into his own chest, and the relic sinks in as if his flesh were wax.

A sharp flare warps the air around him. Tray’s outline blurs, the ruin groans, and then he is gone, swallowed by a shimmer that leaves only dust and silence behind.

Beside Cero, the wolf that was Sable lifts her head. A low growl rolls out of her throat, and the same blue light burns in her eyes now, cold and fixed.

For a heartbeat, the struggle is visible in the set of her body, then it is gone. The beast has the reins.

Loose stone cracks above them. The courtyard settles into a deadly hush, with only the glowing-eyed wolf standing between Cero and the collapsing dark.

The wolf lunges, her jaws snapping with a force that shatters the stone beneath her paws. Cero realizes with a jolt that the blue light in her eyes is not just a mark of the beast, but a hunger that seeks to spread its curse to his own blood.

Cero snaps low and sideways, the wolf’s teeth cutting empty air where his throat was a breath ago. The bite misses, but the impact whips his dagger arm wide and sends a sting through his shoulder.

He skids over broken stone and catches himself on one hand, boots scraping sparks from the rubble. The blue glare in Sable’s eyes flickers across his face as she lands, snarling and off balance.

For one heartbeat, the snarl wavers. Her head jerks toward him, not away, as if something inside the beast heard him first.

Above them, a cracked slab groans and drops a fresh rain of dust. The courtyard keeps caving in, but the blue pulse beneath the stones answers with a dim, stubborn glow.

Sable lowers her shoulders to spring again, eyes fixed on Cero, while loose rock slides between them.

Cero thrusts a palm toward her and calls the wind up from the rubble. A hard gust snaps between them, ruffling dust into a white veil and driving Sable’s next bite wide.

Sable hits the broken floor on one shoulder, skidding back through loose stone. The blue shine in her eyes stutters, and her jaws close on nothing but air.

The strain bites back at Cero’s chest. He keeps the gale up anyway, boots digging trenches in the dust as the pressure shakes his arm and steals his breath.

The wind falters as a sharp, stinging pain flares in Cero's side. He looks down to see a jagged tear in his tunic, dark blood already soaking the fabric where Sable's teeth grazed him during her initial lunge.

Cero grits his teeth and forces the wind back into shape, not as a blast, but as a steady current around Sable. The blue glare in her eyes flickers, and her charging weight checks for a heartbeat.

He steps into the skid, dagger low, keeping himself between Sable and the worst of the collapsing stone. The gale steadies her footing instead of driving her wild, and her snarl breaks into a confused whine.

The relic's blue pulse gutters under the rubble, then answers to Cero's wind with a thin, trembling glow. Sable's ears flatten, her shoulders sagging as the hostile rush drains out of her body.

A slab groans loose overhead, but Cero holds his ground. Sable plants all four paws, no longer lunging, her gaze fixed on him instead of the ruin around them.