Page 6 of Stormvein

ELLIE

A heart once opened cannot close without consequence.

The Healer’s Codex, ancient Tidevein manuscript

The forest fadesin and out around me, trees passing in disjointed flashes as we move deeper into it. My body runs on instinct alone, muscle memory carrying me forward while everything inside me screams to stop. My mouth drags in air, but it never seems to reach my lungs. My heart slams against my ribs.

The current inside me builds, recedes, then builds again. Each surge feels like lightning trapped inside my veins, searching for a way out. When it crests, my skin feels like it might split. When it ebbs, it leaves me empty, less than I was before.

Each cycle drains me further.

“We need to rest.” Mira’s voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater. “She can’t continue like this.”

Yes, I can. I have to.

Varam’s gaze sweeps the trees ahead. “We can’t stop yet. The Authority will have trackers following our trail. We need more distance.”

He’s right. They’re still coming.

“She’s going to collapse if we push any further.” Mira’s hand grips my elbow. Her touch is too hot, too real. “Look at her.”

I force my spine straight, and pour every bit of will I have left into staying upright.

I won’t be their burden. I won’t be the reason we get caught. I won’t be the reason they die.

But the moment I break away from Mira’s support, my legs give way. The world spins. Sky becomes earth, and earth becomes sky. I’m falling, crashing into leaves that smell of decay and rain, cold mud seeping through my clothes and into my bones.

“Ellie!” Varam’s voice warps and distorts, becoming something alien.

The power lashes out in response, a violent reflex of fear and heat. It rips through tissue and marrow, bursting from my palms, my wrists, my throat. I can’t contain it. I can’t stop it. It’s not just reacting anymore. The energy is moving differently now, cutting new channels where none existed before, destroying what stood in its way.

It’s rewriting me from the inside. While the girl who walked through Chicago is disappearing, something else is taking her place.

Voices blur together above me.

“… get her somewhere safe, quickly …”

“… never seen this before …”

“... when the raven merged with her, what did it do…”

A shape materializes in my fading vision. The mist stalker. It hovers over me. I don’tthinkit’s the same creature from the VeilMists. It’s something else. Something that belongs to me. Born from whatever I’m becoming.

“Can’t stop.” The words might only exist in my mind, trapped in the prison of my failing body. My lips won’t move. “Authority ... still … coming.”

They’ll catch us because of me. Because I’m broken. Because I couldn’t save him.

“We’ll have to carry her.” Varam’s voice is clearer now. “There’s a cave system a mile north. If we make it, we can rest there until nightfall.”

Hands slide beneath me, and the contact sends the power into violent rebellion, every cell in my body rejecting the touch. I bite through my tongue rather than scream, copper flooding my mouth—the taste of my own destruction.

This is what loss tastes like. This is what survival costs.

Time becomes elastic. I drift between consciousness and oblivion, aware of movement, and rain that feels like ice against my burning skin, and the creature pacing beside us. When it stops, ears pricked toward our trail, I hear what it hears. The faint sounds of boots on wet earth, voices calling instructions.

They’re still coming. They won’t stop. And I’m the reason we can’t run fast enough.

The next clear moment comes when we stop. The sudden absence of movement shocks my system back into alertness. Forcing my eyes open, I look around. We’re at the mouth of a cave, narrow and barely visible behind a curtain of vines that hang down from the rocky overhang above. Varam sets me down inside.