Read Let The Wind Rise (Sky Fall, #3) for Free Online

dungeon for hidden guards before I lower my voice to the softest hint of a whisper. “When I left Aston’s cave, he told me that if I ever got captured by Raiden, I should look for the guide he carved into his cell. He said it would help me escape.”
    “Did he say how?”
    “He was obnoxiously vague. But if we can find it . . .”
    “I think I already have. There are some marks in here that are clearly supposed to mean something. I don’t know how they could be a guide, though.”
    He points to the back corner of his cell, but all I can see is shadow.
    “Can you describe it to me?” I ask.
    “It just looks like a bunch of dashes and scribbles. Do you really think it matters? I’m sure Raiden’s figured out how Aston escaped and made changes to prevent it from ever happening again.”
    That sounds like Raiden.
    But it’s the best chance we have.
    “Aston is smart—and he was convinced the guide would get me out of here,” I tell Gus, hoping I sound more confident than I feel. “I wish I could see it.”
    Gus nods and crawls toward the shadowy corner. “I guess it’s a good thing I have all these handy wounds, then.”
    He rubs his finger against his chest. Then draws a red line on the floor, painting a copy of the guide in his blood.

CHAPTER 7
VANE
    I ’d really been hoping to face psycho cave-boy with at least a little bit of daylight. But the sun is long gone by the time Arella picks up hints of Aston’s trace.
    I have no idea what she’s sensing. All I see is an empty beach—which looks exactly like the zillion other empty beaches we’ve been flying over for the last few hours.
    She points to a dark patch among the rocks and whispers, “I feel him testing the air, getting a sense of who we are.”
    “Oh, I know who you are,” a deep, accented voice calls from the darkness. “And the only reason you’re still breathing is because I’ve decided to let you. But that can change.”
    A cluster of cold, scratchy drafts yanks us out of the sky and slams us against the beach in an explosion of sand. I can’t see—can’t breathe—can’t tell if I’m sinking or rising. And as the winds crush tighter, everything goes dark.
    The last threads of my consciousness are about to unravel when the winds vanish, and I cough and wheeze through the lingering silt.
    I force my eyes open, squinting through the falling sand to spot . . . a blond head.
    Just a head.
    A lot of shouting and panicking follows, along with a ton of failed attempts to thrash before I realize I’m pinned and—most important—that I didn’t see any blood.
    The head is also talking to me, which I probably should’ve noticed right away. But my brain was too busy screaming, AHHHHHH—DISEMBODIED HEAD!!!
    I take another look and realize the rest of Solana is buried in the sand.
    The fact that I can’t move seems like a pretty good sign that I’m in the same boat.
    I’m trying to be glad that at least I don’t feel any new injuries—or any extra pain shooting through my bad elbow—when I realize we’re stuck in the wet, squishy sand. The kind of sand you only get when you’re on the part of the beach where the waves come crashing down.
    Almost on cue, a freezing, foamy wave slams into us, stinging my eyes and nose and filling my mouth with salt water. The sand loosens around my shoulders as the ocean retreats, but not enough to pull myself free before the next wave hits.
    Then another.
    And another.
    Laughter rings between splashes, and I decide that as soon as I get my arms free I will blast every square inch of this beach with wind spikes until I find his smug face and—
    “I think that’s enough to make it clear who’s in charge here, don’t you?” Aston’s voice asks as the waves stop and we shiver through the eerie silence. “Not that any of you seem capable of putting up much of a fight. Still, now your silly notions of superiority can flutter away with your pride.”
    His voice is everywhere and nowhere, and I