Page 5 of Stormvein

The mist stalker turns, facing the soldiers. Its form expands, growing more substantial, becoming more threatening. It releases a sound I feel more than hear, a vibration that travels through muscle and bone alike. The soldiers falter, uncertainty replacing their confidence.

One soldier raises a crossbow, aiming it directly at me. In the lightning flashes, I see the arrow flying through the air.

My hand rises. Silver bursts from my fingertips. Lightning answers. It hits the arrow mid-flight, wood and metal reduced to ash that washes away in the rain.

But that moment of control costs me. Pain slams through my skull, radiating behind my eyes. The storm stutters, collapsing into rain as energy slips out of reach again. I stumble, my knees giving way. Varam catches me before I hit the ground.

“She’s fading,” he calls to Mira, steadying my weight against his side, with one arm wrapped around my waist. “The power is consuming her faster than she can hold it.”

He doesn’t let go as we move, keeping me upright as we retreat deeper into the shelter of the trees. My legs barely respond, my balance tipping with every shift in the uneven ground. The soaked uniform chafes at my shoulders, the collar tightening with every breath. I claw it loose again, just enough to keep breathing. To keep moving. Just enough to stay upright.

“Can you walk?” Varam is already supporting most of my weight. I’m not sure what else he can do besides carry me.

“I’ll crawl if I have to.” The power is quiet now, buried somewhere I can’t reach. My vision sways. Every step hurts.

“Is she dying?” Rasha asks.

“No.” Mira’s voice is steady. “The transformation isn’t done. The power is unstable. She needs to rest and restore her energy. She needs training we don’t have anyone to give her.”

“Sacha would know what to do.” Varam’s voice is quiet. “He would know exactly what to do.”

His name sends fresh pain through me, grief intertwining with physical agony.

“He’s not dead.” The words leave my mouth in a slur. “I don’t believe it. He can’t be.”

None of them responds right away, letting the sound of rain and thunder still circling behind us fill the silence.

“I’ve seen him move people like that once,” Mira says eventually. “It took hours of meditation to get to the mental place he needed before shaping the spell. What happened back there? That wasn’t the same thing. And with Sereven’s crystal …”

“The crystal.” I jump on her mention of it. “What was it?”

“I don’t know.”

“He could have gotten away. His shadows could have helped him escape,” I insist.

“We thought he was dead once before, and he returned,” Varam acknowledges, although his tone carries little hope. “But if he did … He’ll be weak, vulnerable, and the Authority will be hunting him with everything they have.”

“Then we need to find him first.” The silver brightens for a second before vanishing again. The wave of power leaves me off-balance, but I force myself to keep speaking. “Before they do.”

“I want to, but we can’t, Ellie.” Varam doesn’t look at me as he says it. “You’re unstable. You need control. If you collapse again in the wrong place, we all fall with you.” His eyes move pointedly to the dim streaks of light moving beneath my skin, and then to the mist stalker keeping pace at my side. “Sacha sent me to make sure you survive. That was his final order. I have to follow it. Returning to Stonehaven is our only option.”

I don’t like it, but I know he won’t go against Sacha’s wishes. And he’s right about my power. Itisunstable. I can feel it in the heat threading through my limbs, in the dissonance between what my body is doing and what I’m asking of it. Whatever I’m becoming, I don’t understand it. I can’t trust it, and I don’t know how to control it. If I choose to run headlong into danger now, I might doom us all.

“How far?”

“Two days through the forest,” Mira answers. “Ifwe can keep ahead of the soldiers.”

Two days. Forty-eight hours of uncertainty. Of not knowing if Sacha survived. Of walking with this storm inside me. Of trying to understand what it means to be something the world never prepared me for.

“We can’t leave here,” I protest again. “What if he’s hurt and hiding? What if he’s waiting for us?”

“He wouldn’t want us to stay. He would want us to get you to safety.”

The power stirs inside me again, and this time, shadows move with it.

“He’s alive.” I say it again, willing it to be true. “And we’re going to find him.”

Chapter Two