Chapter 127. The Wind Doesn’t Rage, It Flows
Catherine’s blades faltered for a heartbeat, just one, but in that sliver of time, the revelation tore through her like a poisoned dagger. The words weren’t just information; they were a violation, a recontextualization of her entire existence.
For a terrifying moment, she felt like a marionette whose strings were being jerked by an unseen hand. But she refused to break. Instead of collapsing inward, she channeled that vertigo into a desperate, violent momentum.
She threw herself forward, driving her next strike with such savage desperation that Corwin was forced to stumble back, his boots skidding through the viscera and mud.
"The dungeon collapse eight years ago wasn’t merely about opening a path to what lay sealed beneath it," Corwin said.
His voice remained disturbingly conversational, almost academic, even as he parried a strike that would have split his skull. He moved with a predatory grace, using the opening her brief hesitation provided to close the distance, his blade whistling past her ear so close she could taste the metallic tang of his steel.
"Your survival was never incidental to that plan, Catherine..."
"You were meant to carry something out of that collapse... Not merely information, but presence."
’What does he mean?’
’What did he do?’
The question screamed in the back of her mind, drowning out the sounds of the distant battle. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"You stood at the exact origin point of that rift when it opened, White Sword," Corwin continued, his blade catching hers in a shower of sparks.
Clang!
"Something of what happened there marked you, whether you’ve ever noticed it or not!"
"That mark has been waiting, patiently, for the moment it would finally be needed."
"What mark!?" Catherine screamed, the sound tearing from her throat as she unleashed a barrage of strikes so rapid they became a silver blur. "What did you do to me, you monster!?"
"That answer requires rather more time than either of us currently has." Corwin’s composure was finally beginning to fray at the edges.
Sweat beaded along his brow, and his movements, while still precise, lost that uncanny stillness. Catherine was no longer just fighting him; she was hunting him.
With the explosive foundation of Wind, she moved in impossible angles, reappearing at his flank before his brain could even register the shift in her position.
Corwin unleashed a wide, desperate sweeping strike meant to clear space and force her back, but Catherine didn’t retreat she dove into the danger. She ducked beneath the arc of his blade, the wind of it nearly scalping her, and simultaneously executed a vicious pincer attack.
Her lower blade swept in a low, murderous arc toward his exposed knee while her upper blade continued its original trajectory in a vicious upward slash.
Corwin twisted his body with inhuman reflexes, catching the lower strike against his own blade at the last possible instant with a bone-jarring CRACK, but he couldn’t stop both. The upper blade found its mark, biting deep into his shoulder.
The steel tore through leather and flesh alike, sending a spray of crimson droplets across Catherine’s face. Corwin hissed through gritted teeth, a sound of genuine, unfiltered pain.
"You’re improvising this entire style in the middle of active combat," Corwin panted, his breathing coming in ragged, labored gasps. "That should not be possible... without months of dedicated training."
"You’re breaking the fundamental rules of engagement."
"Maybe I had a good teacher who taught me that ’possible’ isn’t always the same as ’familiar’!" Catherine pressed the advantage, her eyes burning with a cold, terrifying light.
She refused to give him an inch of air. "You spent years teaching me that I had to be fast enough to save everyone!"
"You taught me to be a shield and a tool!"
"But you never once taught me I was allowed to be angry about losing them!"
"Anger clouds judgment, White Sword," Corwin spat, blood frothing at the corner of his mouth as he parried another devastating thrust. "Anger makes you predictable!"
"It makes you weak."
"There it is... the real fact you’ve finally said to me!" Catherine roared, her blades weaving through a complex, relentless combination that forced Corwin into a state of pure, desperate reaction. "But, I don’t care about that...!"
"Let me be weak by using my anger!!!"
Each time their swords met, the impact sent shockwaves through her arms that felt like lightning bolts, but she welcomed the pain. "Anger’s the only thing keeping me standing right now, so I’ll take the trade!"
The clearing became a slaughterhouse of sound and motion. Catherine was no longer fighting with technique; she was fighting with her soul, and her soul was bleeding.
Her anger had transformed her into something feral, a whirlwind of silver and crimson that abandoned all defensive caution in favor of raw, unadulterated lethality.
SHING! CRACK! SPLAT!
She lunged, not with a measured thrust, but with a desperate, killing drive. Aetherion screamed through the air, followed immediately by the white blade in a vicious diagonal slash.
Corwin, forced into a defensive crouch, barely managed to catch the blows. The impact was so violent that Catherine’s own wrists buckled, the vibrations traveling up her arms and threatening to shatter the bones in her forearms.
"That’s it," Corwin taunted, though his voice was strained, his eyes widening as he watched her unravel. "Let the rage consume you..."
"Let it burn away everything that makes you human."
"I’ll burn you to ash first!" Catherine shrieked.
She swung with everything she had, a horizontal cleave meant to decapitate.
But she was overextending. Her fury had made her telegraph every move.
Corwin saw it the minute of her shoulders tensing before the strike. He didn’t just parry; he exploited.
As her blade whistled overhead, Corwin stepped inside her guard, his movements economical and cruel.
THWACK.
His pommel slammed into her temple, sending stars exploding behind her eyes. Before she could stagger back, his blade came across in a vicious backhand cut.
Sssssss!
The steel bit deep into her ribs. Catherine gasped, a wet, choking sound as blood immediately began to soak through her tunic.
She tried to swing back, but her coordination was fracturing. Her anger had created a blindness in her vision, a red haze that made the world tilt and spin.
Corwin pressed the advantage like a wolf sensing blood in the water. He unleashed a flurry of precise, punishing strikes.
A slash across her thigh was followed by a thrust that grazed her stomach slice. Catherine was bleeding from multiple wounds now, crimson droplets painting the cracked earth beneath her.
Each hit felt like a hammer blow to her already shattered composure. Her breathing became a series of ragged, bloody wheezes.
Clang! Clang! Slash!
Corwin landed a devastating blow against her left forearm, the force of it sending a spray of blood from a fresh gash. Catherine stumbled backward, her legs feeling like water, her dual blades shaking uncontrollably.
She was wide open, a wounded animal backed into a corner, her rage having left her completely unguarded.
"You’re losing yourself, Catherine," Corwin said, stepping forward to deliver the finishing blow, his blade raised high. "You’re not a warrior anymore..."
"You’re just a tantrum wrapped in steel!"
"Catherine! STOP!"
The voice cut through the ringing in her ears like a lightning bolt. It was William.
Even from across the battlefield, his voice carried a supernatural authority that pierced through her crimson haze.
"Catherine, listen to me!" William’s voice roared again, not with anger, but with a desperate, commanding calm. "You’re killing yourself!"
"The Wind... you can’t feel the Wind when you’re drowning in blood and rage!"
Catherine froze, her blades trembling inches from Corwin’s throat. Her vision swirled.
’The Wind...’
"Anger is fire, Catherine!" William shouted, his voice echoing in her mind. "And fire consumes its own fuel!"
"You’re burning out before you can strike him down!"
"Breathe. Find the center! The wind doesn’t rage... it flows!"
"It moves through the storm; it doesn’t become it!"
’Inhale. Exhale.’
Her heart was hammering at a suicidal pace. Blood dripped from her fingertips, pooling in the dirt.
She could feel Corwin’s impatience, the way he was coiled like a spring, ready to pounce on her weakness.
’I’m dying,’ she thought, a flash of terror breaking through the rage. ’I’m bleeding out and he’s going to kill me.’
"Don’t let the anger be your master," William’s voice whispered now, softer, almost intimate despite the distance. "Use the pain!"
"Let it be the cold air that carries the storm!"
"Find the stillness between the breaths!"
"Find the Wind."
Catherine closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, ignoring Corwin’s advancing blade. She felt the blood loss, the searing pain in her ribs, the throbbing in her skull and beneath it all, she felt the faint, erratic pulse of the world around her.
The wind was howling through the trees, chaotic and violent, but somewhere in the heart of that howl, there was a path.
A flow.