Page 2 of Stormvein

My fingertips burn as metallic light cracks through my skin, spilling into lines that race their way across the backs of my hands. The shadows of Sacha’s familiar, the last piece of him that reached me, twist into the brilliance, curling through it, merging with the silver in ways that feel both wrong and inevitable. Two powers never meant to coexist, forced together in my body.

I am being unmade with each ragged breath,remadewith each thundering heartbeat.

I throw my head back, a raw, animal sound tearing from my throat. Not quite a scream, not quite a sob, but the sound of something coming apart. The storm answers my cry, lightning splitting the sky, hitting the earth in jagged lines, each bolt closer to the few Authority soldiers still standing below.

Movement on the ground attracts my attention, and I focus on the splash of crimson at the bottom of the hill. The remaining soldiers are regrouping around Sereven, the man who took everything from me in a single moment. Even from this distance, I can see his face, twisted in fury. He lifts the crystal again, and its unnatural blue light pulses outward, tracking the energy trying to take me over.

“They killed him.” The words fall from my lips like stones into the abyss opening inside me. “They killed him, and now he’s gone.”

The man who taught me how to live in this world. The man whose touch reached through everything I was and woke something new.

Mira lifts her head slowly, her eyes meeting mine. Her lips move, forming a word. Awhisper. But somehow it carries through the howling wind like a death knell. A christening. A prophecy fulfilled.

“Stormvein.”

It isn’t just a name. It lands too deep for that. It changes how I breathe. It cuts a space inside me and marks me from within.

Written in lightning. Anchored in grief. Claimed by fury.

The Authority has taken Sacha from me. They have stolen the future we might have had together. For that alone, they will pay. Their blood for his. Their screams for mine.

I lift my hands to the sky, and the storm answers my call. Lightning forms a blinding bridge between heaven and earth. Between the girl who fell through worlds and the woman standing here now. I try to shape it, aim it at the men below. But the force flowing through me in chaotic waves doesn’t obey my demands.

It flares painfully bright, then dims without warning, leaving me gasping and disoriented. The storm above mimics thisinstability, lightning striking wild and wide, the pattern breaking down.

“My Lord …” Mishak says, uncertainty replacing reverence. He rises halfway, hand outstretched. But he doesn’t touch me. His hand hovers, caught between duty and fear.

The title strikes harder than the lightning.

It doesn’t belong to me.

It belongs tohim.

Below us, the Authority soldiers begin advancing up the hill, their red uniforms stark against the mud. Sereven walks in the center of them, holding the crystal high above his head. That awful blue glow pulses with sickening regularity. The same light that tore Sacha’s shadows apart. That erased him before our eyes while I could do nothing but watch.

“We need to get her out of here.” Mira pushes to her feet.

I try to stand, to prove I’m still capable of moving on my own, but my body fails me. My legs buckle. The sky lurches. The ground tilts sideways.

“Easy.” Mira moves closer, despite her apparent fear. Her hand reaches for my arm, but doesn’t make contact. “Your power is new. Unstable.”

The light flowing through me flickers erratically. Pain follows each new surge, burning, then freezing, then back to burning. My nerves can’t keep up, my body slowly falling into shock, and I can do nothing to stop it.

“We have to move away from here.” Mishak’s gaze is fixed on the approaching soldiers, his hand dropping to rest on his blade. “They’re not retreating, and we won’t survive facing them.”

I try to focus on the storm again, willing the lightning to strike the advancing soldiers the way it did when Sacha was taken. Nothing happens. No spark. No charge. The elements ignore my call, the storm softening into ordinary rainfall, mocking my attempt to command it.

“I can’t—” The power surges again, a violent arc that burns like fire up my spine, and I collapse forward, palms sinking into the mud. “I can’t control it.” The words come out between gasps.

What good is this ability if I can’t use it to stop this? To change any of it?

“She’s still changing.” Mira’s voice cuts through the rain, sharpened now with urgency. She takes a breath, and her hand moves those final inches to grasp my arm. She flinches as sparks of energy race up her fingers, but to her credit, she doesn’t let go. “We need to get her to safety. If they capture her now?—”

She doesn’t need to finish the sentence. I know what the Authority does to those with power. I saw what they did to Sacha. How they trapped him for half his life. I witnessed how they used that crystal to tear him apart.

Another wave of grief threatens to choke me, but before it can overwhelm me, a soft sound draws my attention—part growl, part purr. I turn my head to find the mist stalker has shifted closer, its elongated body tense, moonlight-colored fur rippling over powerful muscles. Its eyes, amber ringed with silver, lock on mine with unnerving focus, and full of intelligence.

It’s solid, physical, andreal. Unlike Mira and Mishak, it doesn’t seem to fear what is happening to me. It doesn’t step back. It just watches me.