Her ankle twisted and her foot was pulled from beneath her before she could even feel the pain. She struck the mud face-first and rolled. It had been a sharp tripwire. She could feel the swelling in her ankle, the blood filling the soft leather of her moccasin boot. She wanted to cry, to scream her mother’s name, but stopping now could get her killed. She leapt behind another long rock and lay, trying to become invisible. The mountainside was irregular, an obstacle course of stone and fallen trees, of mud and sheer cliffs. Her mother had chosen it for this, to teach Jet all of the skills that her mother claimed she would someday need. Up until now, Jet never had.
Maybe that was why she didn’t cry now. The training. The lessons. The constant expectation that things would be more dangerous than they really were. She tried to sense what was around her, but her thoughts collapsed into fear. There was only her heart hammering in her chest, her body, her muddied arms and legs, her throbbing ankle, and her cold fingers still gripping the handle of the knife.
The wind was getting stronger. Jet took a few deep, slow breaths, as if pulling it into her body. It would help her. She had always been good in the wind. Her mother had taught her to move with it. She’d said it was Jet’s gift.
Ignoring the pain in her ankle, she ran again, this time moving with the wind, fitting her body to its contours so that she brushed past stones, through trees, not traveling directly toward the peak where she normally found her mother during the game, but letting the wind carry her along an indirect route no one could know unless they too were running in the wind.
Her feet danced from rock to rock. She avoided the moonlight, threading her body along shadows. The texture of the wind pleased her, and she almost forgot her pain. But she didn’t stop looking for the person who had thrown the knife and set the tripwire. She still couldn’t sense them or see any trace.
The low, flat peak of the mountain came into sight past trees and boulders, and moments later, something brushed against her thigh, catching in the cloth of her pants. Even as her fingers touched it, she knew what it was. A dart, its metal tip barbed, maybe poisonous. In her mother’s stories, they always were. She felt a sob building in her chest and tried to calm herself. Another one shot past and pinged off a rock. Where was her enemy? Above her, on the peak—that’s where he had to be.
Move with the wind. Feel the elements. As she ran, the deep hum of the earth reached up through the mud. The fluctuations of the wind propelled her stride. The heat in her chest, the air in her lungs, the solidity of her body—all this she could blend. But whoever was up there had incredible vision and aim. Another dart flickered past her face. Focus!
And then her mind calmed and opened outward, and she could sense the world again, the life out there, across the desert’s martian landscape that descended behind her. She knew each thing in its place. Lizards and snakes sleeping beneath rocks. Animals in burrows. A distant coyote sniffing the night air, sensing her. She had never felt this alive. Someone was on the peak, the presence faint, cloaked as if by an incredible act of focus, but still discernible. She directed her attention, searching into whoever it was.
Her enemy’s energy hummed with anger, with hostility. In the body standing on the peak, she sensed an intention to hunt and kill her. Just feeling it, she was terrified.
What choice do I have? she asked herself. I can’t just run away. Mom is out here somewhere. I have to do this. Stay calm!
Jet began to move again. Keeping close to shelter, she sprinted, twisting and leaping with the wind. She dimmed her presence, slowing her heart and breath even as she ran, to let her entire existence blur into the wind. It gusted hard, and she commanded her own life force to become faint, like a drop of water wiped along the surface of a dark window.
She didn’t head directly for the peak, but around the mountain, to a cleft she knew, just at the back, at the base of a stand of gnarled trees, their branches misshapen from the wind. It was the only way she could think of to invade the higher ground. She timed it perfectly with a strong gust, with the brief passing of a small cloud over the moon, with the distant cry of the coyote that she sensed ready to howl, and then she was twisting through the air, taking shape, her foot reaching for the earth as she swung the knife. The figure stood on the flat surface of the peak and spun toward her.
Sparks flashed as her enemy lifted a blade and deflected the knife. Her opponent was wrapped in black, just as Jet was. This was no crazy war veteran, but someone far more dangerous. Someone who wanted to stay hidden.
The moon appeared from behind the cloud, and her enemy kept its back to it, silhouetted, the bright pallor shining into Jet’s eyes as wind poured against the mountain with incredible force. Jet tried to use it, circling, feeling the pulse of the stone beneath her feet. But even as she twisted and leapt, the figure hardly seemed to move and yet avoided every strike, simply shifting slightly or again deflecting Jet’s knife.
Jet never stopped, attacking repeatedly as she swirled close to the silhouetted figure. She timed her kicks and circled, trying to get the moonlight out of her eyes. She focused her strength and energy, but her fists and feet and knife passed as if through the wind.
All the while Jet was trying to sense the fighter’s energy, at once masked and hostile, burning with a deep core of anger. But her enemy didn’t act on this rage, didn’t give in to impatience. It easily avoided every strike. All of the tricks Jet’s mother had taught her, to dodge and fall back and attack, to follow the wind, letting herself retreat or stumble even as she struck—nothing worked.
Another small cloud passed between the moon and the mountain, and even as Jet began to formulate a strategy, she realized her mistake. She should have planned already, for the split second when the moonlight would vanish. Her enemy had done this.
As Jet was leaping to the side, trying to stay with the wind, a foot struck her stomach, suspending her in the air as if she’d been pinned there. And then she was falling, trying to find the earth with her feet, even as she couldn’t breathe.
A hand caught the back of her head, gripping her hair through the black cloth. Her enemy jerked her head back and put the knife to her throat.
The wind suddenly died. The cloud passed from before the moon. The desolate landscape of the desert mountains stretched out like a vision of another world. Was this the last thing Jet would see?
“You’ve been lazy,” the enemy hissed. “You’ve never wanted to learn.”
Jet tried to pull away, but the blade stayed at her throat. The fist held her hair.
“What good are you to me? Tell me that!”
This time she heard the voice clearly: it was her mother’s.
“Mom?!” Jet cried out in shock. “What are you doing? Are you crazy?”
Then her mother’s lips were close to Jet’s ear. There was a long silence. “I’ve trained you since you were old enough to walk, and all you think about is parties and clothes. Millions of kids go to parties and wear nice clothes. Only one or two people in the world get to learn what I’ve taught you. You still don’t understand, do you?” She sheathed the knife and unwrapped her face.
Jet had begun to cry, shaking not just with fear and hurt, but with anger.
“You almost killed me! You could have–” she seethed.
“Jet,” her mother took a step closer, but her knees buckled. Jet caught her mother’s arm and held her up.
“This,” her mother whispered, “really was the last time. I had to make you see. I didn’t have the energy left, but I had to. I had to try to make you see.”
“See what? What’s wrong, Mom? Tell me. Tell me!”
“If you meet the dark leader, you must not be swayed. You mustn’t be weak, like I was,” Satoko said. “You must be strong.”
“What dark leader?” Fear rose in the pit of Jet’s stomach. “What do you mean, Mom?”