The Storm of Rage

They fell.

The wind screamed in Vesper's ears. The ground was rushing up to meet them—a mosaic of city lights and darkness.

Julian was screaming a prayer he hadn't used in twenty years.

Vesper didn't pray. She focused on the storm she had created. She felt the currents of air, the violence of the downdraft.

* Up,* she commanded.

The wind obeyed. It slammed into them from below, a brutal cushion of air. It didn't catch them gently; it threw them. They were tossed like ragdolls, spinning through the rain, tumbling over the city walls, over the shantytowns, out toward the open desert.

They crashed into the side of a dune.

Sand and mud filled Vesper's mouth. She rolled, tumbling down the slope, coming to a stop at the bottom of a ravine.

Silence returned.

Only the sound of distant thunder remained.

Vesper lay on her back, staring up at the sky. It was still raining, but softer now. The storm was moving south, away from them.

She was alive.

She sat up, coughing. Her body ached. Her dealer's vest was torn.

"Julian?"

A groan from a few yards away. Julian pulled himself out of a drift of wet sand. He had lost his hat. His velvet coat was ruined.

He looked at her and started to laugh. It was a jagged, breathless sound.

"You... you destroyed the Spire," he wheezed. "You flooded the casino. The House is gone, Vesper. You broke the bank."

Vesper wiped the mud from her face. She felt lighter. The reservoir was empty. She had spent it all on the rage.

"I didn't do it for the bank," she said.

Julian crawled over to her. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his lucky coin. It was bent, scarred by the fall.

"Well," he said, breathless. "We are alive. We are outside the walls. But we have no Writ. No water. No food. And the Church will be coming."

He balanced the bent coin on his thumb.

"Heads, we go North to the Free Cities. Tails, we go East to the Canyons."

He prepared to flip.

Vesper reached out and smacked the coin from his hand. It flew into the dark sand and disappeared.

Julian blinked. "Hey! That was my decision-maker."

Vesper stood up. Her legs were shaky, but she locked her knees. She looked at the horizon. The first hint of dawn was bleeding into the sky—a pale, uncertain grey.

"No more games, Julian," she said. "No more prayers. And no more chance."

"So what do we do?" Julian asked, looking up at her. He looked small without his tricks.

"We walk," Vesper said.

"Which way?"

Vesper didn't look at a compass. She didn't check the wind. She just chose.

"That way."

She started walking toward the rising sun.

Julian sat there for a moment, looking at the spot where his coin had vanished. Then, he looked at Vesper's retreating back. He shook his head, a small, genuine smile touching his lips. He scrambled to his feet.

"Wait up!" he called. "You're going the wrong way, you know!"

"I know," Vesper called back, not stopping.

Julian ran to catch up. They walked into the unwritten expanse of the desert, leaving no footprints that the rain didn't immediately wash away.