the timid bride

# Chapter 96 – When Fire Meets Wind

In the northern skies, a new threat rose—not born of shadow, sea, or flame.

But of wind.

And memory forgotten by the skies.

---

Zara's dream began with a whisper.

A child's voice. A lullaby.

"Wind will rise when fire sleeps…

Sky will bleed when silence weeps…

If you forget the names once flown,

The air shall come to take its own."

She woke with her heart pounding.

Beside her, Kael stirred. "Another vision?"

Zara nodded. "Something old. Something above us."

Kael frowned. "We've dealt with below and beyond. Now it's above?"

She rose from bed, stepping into moonlight.

"Call the Windguard," she ordered.

---

The Windguard were once protectors of the floating isles—skyborn cities that had broken from the earth during the First Fracture. Most had fallen, lost to storms.

But three remained.

Zara flew with Kael, Amara, and a new squadron of Flamewrights to the highest of them: Aetherhold.

They arrived on the back of stormhawks—giant winged beasts once sacred, now re-bonded to the crown.

Aetherhold shimmered like crystal. But its towers were cracked, vines overgrown. Wind howled through its hollow spires.

No people.

Only echoes.

---

They searched the archives.

Scrolls told of the Skyborn Pact: an oath between the first flame king and the wind singers.

An agreement that the skies would never be ruled. Only remembered.

"Then someone must have broken that pact," Zara said.

Kael found a shattered orb at the summit.

Etched into it were names—vanished, erased.

Amara whispered, "They were erased from history."

A voice rang from the sky:

**"So history comes to erase you."**

---

The wind turned violent.

Not storm.

Memory.

Each gust showed visions—battles, betrayals, forgotten queens, silenced voices.

Zara clung to the tower as the wind shaped into a being: tall, invisible, made only of swirling memory and forgotten names.

"I am Aeris, the Remnant Wind. You forgot us."

Zara shouted into the gale. "Then remind me!"

Aeris paused.

And the wind calmed.

---

Back on the palace grounds, Zara opened a Sky Tribunal—inviting all remaining skyborn, wind sages, and stormblooded families to speak.

They told stories of when the sky still sang. Of when the wind carried messages between lovers and kings. Of how the old crown had silenced them after a rebellion.

Zara stood and bowed.

"I am not that crown. But I carry its weight. And I will not forget you again."

---

To restore balance, Zara built the Hall of Winds—a library-temple where wind magic would be studied, remembered, and honored.

The first decree etched above the gates:

**"To forget the sky is to invite the fall."**

---

Aeris returned once more.

This time, in peace.

Zara met the being atop the Flame Spire.

"You gave voice to silence," Aeris said. "And fire to the sky."

Zara bowed her head. "Then let the sky burn with memory."

Aeris smiled. "The storm is stilled. For now."

---

But even as they spoke, the wind shifted once more.

From the east, a current arrived.

Carrying no threat.

But a prophecy:

**"The flame, the sea, the sky—three trials complete.

But when earth awakens, all shall kneel.

For fire cannot burn stone that remembers.

And kings rise not from sky… but from soil."**

Zara turned to Kael.

"Earth," she whispered.

And beneath her feet, the ground trembled.