Page 58 of Stormvein (The Veinbound Trilogy #2)

Unlike the first time he tried to teach me, there’s a different quality to his instruction now. He’s more patient, more attuned to the subtleties of my responses.

The light that once erupted from me against my will now responds to gentle coaxing, gathering beneath my skin without breaking through. I draw it up my spine, through my chest, into my fingertips, where it shimmers just beneath the surface.

“Now extend your awareness outward,” he instructs. “Feel the air beyond these walls. The moisture. The pressure systems.”

And I do. My consciousness expands beyond the room, beyond the mountain, sensing weather patterns I shouldn’t be able to perceive. Heavy clouds gathering miles away. Air currents shifting direction with temperature changes. The electrical charge building in the atmosphere.

His instruction carries an intimacy I struggle to define.

He sits close enough that our knees touch, his voice pitched low.

Occasionally, his fingers brush my wrist, checking my pulse, but lingering longer than necessary.

Each point of contact echoes through me, a continuation of what we began last night, that same connection now channeled through discipline instead of passion.

When his fingers stroke a pattern over my palm, demonstrating how energy can flow through controlled pathways, heat follows in their wake.

The memory of those same hands on my body hours ago, flashes unbidden, and the silver light flares in response.

Rather than pulling away, he places his hand over mine.

“That, too, is part of your power.” His voice is soft. “Desire, connection. They aren’t distractions but fuel. Learn to work with them, not against them.”

His voice is low and steady, stripped of the razor-sharp edge he uses with others, softened to a cadence that seems to bypass my ears entirely and settle right into my bloodstream.

It wraps around my thoughts until everything else recedes.

He doesn’t waste words, but when he speaks, the world narrows to the space between us, as though we exist in our own pocket of reality, separate from Stonehaven and the politics beyond its walls.

With each exercise, something shifts. Not only my control over the power, but the boundaries of what I thought possible.

“That’s it,” he whispers when I describe what I’m sensing. “You’re not just calling the storm, you’re becoming part of its language. When you draw the rain, you aren’t creating something from nothing. You’re gathering what’s already present in the air. You give it direction. Purpose.”

Outside, I feel the weight in the air—moisture, waiting to be called. I could bring it together and make it rain if I wanted to. I could draw down lightning from the charged particles drifting above us. I could raise winds strong enough to tear the trees out of the ground.

“Now pull back. Observe, but don’t influence.”

That’s harder.

It’s one thing to reach for power. It’s another to feel it, and hold back. To resist the urge to shape it. To simply witness what it is, without leaving a trace.

“The most powerful tool you have isn’t the storm itself. It’s knowing when not to use it.”

His words resonate in my head. Not because they’re profound, but because they feel true.

The air between us is different now. Softer.

Less guarded. His guidance sinks in more easily, as though something inside me has relaxed, opened .

The resistance I didn’t even know I’d been holding onto begins to fall away.

“You’re learning faster now,” he says after I complete another exercise without faltering.

“It feels more natural now. Like I’m not constantly fighting it.”

He nods. “That’s because you’ve stopped treating it as something separate. The power is part of you. You’re not bending it to your will, you’re moving with it.”

As the afternoon wears on, his instruction becomes quieter. He starts to share things beyond training. Moments and memories. Pieces of himself I doubt few have ever heard. They come between exercises, between breaths. Like he’s not planning to say them, but they slip free anyway.

“I didn’t understand it at first.” His eyes are focused on the shadow he’s weaving between his fingers. “The darkness would move with my emotions. My anger. My grief. My fear. The harder I tried to bury those things, the more chaotic and unpredictable the shadows became.”

I don’t interrupt. I don’t ask the questions burning my tongue. I stay quiet and let him speak.

"I was terrified. Constantly.” His voice drops lower, becoming almost confessional. “One slip, one moment of real feeling, and I thought everything around me would be torn apart."

His admission steals my breath. The feared Shadowvein Lord, admitting to terror.

“Is that why you always seem so in control? Even when—” The memory of him bloodied and unmoving in that cage tightens my throat.

He meets my gaze, understanding what I don’t finish.

“Yes. Control was about survival at first. Then habit. Eventually, it became instinct.” His fingers close, extinguishing the shadow.

“When they tortured me the first time, before the tower … control was the only power I had left. If I surrendered that …”

He shakes his head, abandoning the thought, and lifts a hand to demonstrate a technique for steadying emotional surges.

A small thread of shadow uncoils from his palm, silent and smooth, responding only to the rhythm of his breath.

It doesn’t lash or waver. It holds there under his control for a second before fading away to nothing.

The display is brief. Subtle. But I can’t stop watching him.

There’s a beauty in the way he moves, in the way the shadows follow his will without hesitation. They obey his every direction. I watch the way his fingers shift, the way the darkness coils and stills, the way he shapes it without tension or force.

He hasn’t just trained for this. He’s lived inside it, been shaped by it. This is more than discipline or mastery. It’s identity.

By late afternoon, the room has grown quiet.

The storm inside me has stilled, and Sacha hasn’t spoken in several minutes. He sits across from me, one knee drawn up, forearm resting across it, gaze distant. He’s not absent, just elsewhere.

I’ve never seen him like this. Still … almost peaceful. As if the silence isn’t something that needs to be filled.

Neither of us moves to break it. Whatever passed between us today feels too fragile to disturb, like it’s still settling into place. And that’s how Varam finds us. The knock is brief, and the door opens before Sacha can move, and he steps inside.

His gaze sweeps the room, pausing briefly on me before settling on Sacha.

“Final preparations are complete.” His tone gives nothing away about the scene he’s walked in on. “Supplies packed. Route secured. Scouts are already in position.”

Sacha stands, his stillness dissolving in an instant. “It’s time to prepare Lisandra then.”

Varam nods. “I’ll see to it.”

He turns to the wall where the hidden doorway is, then pauses. “There’s something else. Rumors have started. Nothing specific. Word that you’re recovering. Some are saying it’s a blessing from the old gods.”

Sacha doesn’t react. “Let them wonder. The more contradictions, the harder it is for Sereven to know what’s true.”

“I’ve put guards on either end of the passageway leading to your chambers, in case anyone tries to get more confirmation than we’re issuing. Only those already cleared can enter. You should sleep. We’ll leave at first light.”

Sacha nods, and Varam disappears without another word.

The silence that follows isn’t the same as before. It’s heavier now.

“Do you think she’ll actually go through with it?” I ask. “Knowing what might happen to her if Sereven suspects it’s a trap?”

“She won’t have a choice. I’ll be close enough to intervene if she attempts to betray us again.”

“And when he realizes you’re alive?”

His eyes meet mine. “That’s when the real battle will begin.”

I study his face, searching for some trace of the hatred I’d feel in his position.

But there’s nothing. No rage, no thirst for vengeance.

Just cold focus, that’s somehow more frightening.

This isn’t about settling a score, or a personal vendetta.

It’s about justice on a larger scale. About dismantling the system that threatens everyone under his protection.

Something about that makes my heart ache. Even his revenge isn’t personal. I wonder if anything in his life has ever been purely for himself.

He turns toward me, stepping close. His hand rises, thumb brushing lightly over my jaw, tracing the curve of my lower lip. It’s such a gentle contrast to everything we’ve discussed that it steals the breath from my lungs.

“I want your promise.” His voice is low, deep enough that I feel it more than hear it. “When we reach Blackstone Ridge, you’ll do what I say. No arguments. No improvisation.”

His thumb continues its path across my skin, but his eyes hold mine. The contradiction is dizzying. He’s touching me like a lover, and commanding me like a general.

“I’ll promise that, only if you promise not to do anything that might get you captured again.

” My hand rises to grasp his wrist, holding his hand against my cheek.

“I can’t—” My voice threatens to break, and I swallow, licking my lips.

His eyes zero in on the movement. “I won’t stand by and watch him hurt you again. Not if I have the power to stop it.”

“Ellie—” My name is a soft exhalation.

“No.” I tighten my grip on his wrist, and light sparks between us. “This isn’t negotiable. Whatever we’ve become to each other, whatever this is between us, it means I get to make demands too. We protect each other, or not at all.”

Surprise flickers in his eyes, and then he nods. “Then you have my promise.”

The formality of his words, the way his palm cups my cheek … it makes me wonder if anyone has ever tried to protect him before, rather than the other way around. And it makes me even more determined to do just that if it’s necessary.