Page 153 of Stormvein

I suck in a deep breath, and let him change the subject. There will be time later to talk about crowns and titles.

“Twenty-seven.”

His nod is unsurprised.

“You think I could be this child?” The possibility seems both impossible and strangely inevitable. “That I was bornhere, and not in my world?” Not an unwanted visitor, but a returnee. Not an outsider, but something that belongs.

“It would explain Sereven’s reaction. His shock when he recognized you.”

The soft words do nothing to ease the vertigo I feel at the thought of this being the truth of where I came from.

I spin away, needing to pace while I process. Each step grounds me momentarily before the next thought sends my mind spinning again.

“But none of that explains how I ended up at a church in Chicago!”

“Unless it was the only way to truly hide you from Sereven. If he was hunting you personally, there isn’t a single place in Meridian that would have been safe enough for you.”

There’s something in his tone that suggests there’s a story there, but I don’t have the mental capacity to think about that right now. Not when my entire life history is tipping on its axis.

“Butwhy? Why would he hunt a child? What possible danger could I have been to him?”

“And that’s the real question, isn’t it? Do you remember anything from before you were found in the church? Do you remember being found?”

I try to think back to my earliest memories, searching for anything that might offer a clue. The group home in Chicago. The series of families that thought about taking me home, but ultimately didn’t. The silver bracelet.

That memory connects to something else. Not the bracelet itself, but my reaction to the storm that night. While the other children had cowered in fear as lightning split the sky, I’d been transfixed. I’d felt like the storm was calling to me. The crashing thunder sounded like my name, the lightning flashes like signals meant only for me.

“What if my connection to storms began before I came here?” I whisper. “What if that power has always been there, waiting for me?”

The thought is both exhilarating and terrifying. If it’s true, it means I’ve always belonged to this world in some way, that myconnection to it runs deeper than I could have ever imagined. I’m not an accidental visitor, but a lost daughter, returning to a home I never knew I had.

“What does this mean for me?”

“It means that Sereven has feared your return for twenty-four years, and now that fear has been realized.”

“But why? Why would my return frighten him?”

He sighs. “I don’t know. We need more information, and at the moment our resources are limited.”

“Right now, I’ll take anything I can get!” The words burst from me as I pace away, silver light pulsing beneath my skin in time with my agitation. My reflection catches in a polished metal surface again. Brown eyes flecked with unnatural silver, face too thin, a stranger looking back at me.

He catches my arm as I walk past him, and forces me to stop. “One thing is certain. If your presence here is as important as Sereven’s reaction suggests, then he’s not going to stop until he finds you again.”

“I’m not afraid of him!” I’m surprised to realize that I mean it. After everything I’ve survived since arriving in this world—the tower, the Authority, Ashenvale, nearly losing Sacha—fear seems like a distant, almost irrelevant emotion. Something I’ve moved beyond.

“But you should be.” His voice is quiet. “Maybe not for yourself, but for what he might do to anyone who protects you. To anyone who stands between him and whatever it is you represent.”

His words send a chill through me. I hadn’t considered that aspect—that if Sereven is desperate to find me, he might bring the full force of the Authority down on Stonehaven. On Varam, Mira, and the others who have shown me kindness.

I lift my chin. If I am what they sought to destroy, there must be a reason. If I am what Sereven fears, there must be power in that.

“We need to act first. We need to find out why he fears me, and use that against him.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

SACHA

The Authority requires silence not for order, but for forgetting.