"The storm does not mark the weak. It marks the ones who dare to rise against it."
— Stormkeeper's Testament, Verse VII
The world tilts.
The Skycastle groans beneath my feet, the storm howling through the broken arches, rattling the banners like the wings of a thousand unseen birds.
The courtiers stumble back, silver cloaks whipping around them like panicked specters. Their faces—so still before—twist into something sharp. Not just fear. Recognition.
They were not expecting this. Not from me. Not from the girl they thought would bow her head and break like all the others.
Their gazes cut into me, sharp as hail, slicing past my skin, my soul.
Whispers rise, thin and brittle.
"It's too soon—""It shouldn't be waking—""The storm answered her—"
The storm.
It lashes through the hall now, wild and directionless, a mirror of the thing unraveling inside me.
I can't breathe. Can't think.
The runes beneath the floor blaze white-hot, searing patterns into the mist. The windows tremble in their frames. The air tastes of blood and rain and something sweet enough to burn.
I stagger.
And the instant I do—he catches me.
His arms wrap around me with a force that leaves no room for argument. No room for fear.
The Stormlord pulls me against him, grounding me in a world already tearing apart.
The lightning flares once—then gutters out. The wind shrinks to a low, broken hum.
And for one long heartbeat, the only thing holding back the end of the world is him.
His hand at my back, anchoring me. His forehead brushing mine, breath hot against my skin. The storm crackles between us—not a scream. A pulse. A tether.
I'm too dizzy to push him away. Too dizzy to want to.
"Easy," he murmurs, voice low and rough. "I've got you."
And then—darkness.
When I wake, the world is quieter. Dim. Cool.
No banners. No runes. No watchful court. Only soft, storm-lit shadows curling along the walls of a vast chamber carved from mist and stone.
The bed beneath me is too wide. The sheets too soft. The air too thick with the lingering taste of lightning.
It smells of him.
I sit up slowly, heart pounding, throat dry.
The crystal stormveil still clings to my shoulders—a reminder of the bond that tied me to him before I even had the chance to say no.
I'm alone.
I close my eyes and breathe, memory crashing down in fragments. The walk through the empty village. The veil torn from my shoulders. The way the new one—his one—settled like a crown and a chain all at once.The court's faces. The sky breaking open. And him. Always him.
I clench my fists in the sheets, the stormveil crackling softly under my hands.
How long have I been asleep? How much have I already lost?
I think of all the things I didn't say. When I first met him. When the stormbinding circle blazed at my feet. When the court stared and the sky answered.
I had stood silent. Mute. As if my mouth had been sewn shut by the storm itself.
I hate that. I hate that when the moment came, I didn't tear the veil off my own shoulders like I promised.
The anger wells up fast and hot. Not just at him. At myself.
At the part of me that had known—even before the surge, even before the sky split open—that this was always going to happen. That there was something inside me waiting to wake.
I shudder, pressing my palms hard against my face.
"What am I even supposed to be now?" I whisper.
The silence stretches.
And then—a voice from the shadows:
"Exactly what you were always meant to be."
I freeze. Slowly, slowly, I lower my hands.
And from the gloom beyond the stormlit curtains, he steps forward.
The Stormlord.
He has been here all along. Watching. Waiting.
He steps fully into the stormlight. No armor. No cloak of wind and thunder. Just a man cut from shadow and sky, standing a few paces from my bed, watching me like the sky watches the sea—waiting to see if I will rise, or drown.
I sit straighter, pulling the veil tighter around my shoulders, as if it could shield me from him.It doesn't.
"You were there the whole time," I say.
Not a question. A truth.
He inclines his head, a slight tilt, carved from stone.
"You are not safe yet," he says simply. "I stayed to make sure the storm did not claim you."
I laugh—bitter, soft, broken.
"And if it had?"
A muscle ticks in his jaw.
"Then it would have proven you were never meant to wear the veil."
I hate the way those words make my chest tighten. Hate the way some small part of me craves their weight.
"So that's it?" I murmur. "Your storm tries to tear me apart, and if I survive, I'm worthy?"
His silver gaze darkens, the way the sky darkens before it breaks.
"The storm does not test those it does not fear."
The words slam into me harder than any thunderclap.
For a moment, neither of us moves. The veil crackles where my fingers clutch it. The wind outside hums low and restless, mirroring the tension thickening between us.
"You should fear me too," I whisper.
A slow, terrible smile touches the corner of his mouth. Not mocking. Not cruel. Knowing.
"I already do."
He watches me in silence, arms loose at his sides, as if he has all the time in the world.
And for the first time, I notice the details.
The shirt he wears is loose at the throat, the laces untied, exposing a glimpse of skin—all sun-touched bronze and sculpted like some cruel god decided to shape a storm into a man and leave the damage behind.
There's a faint mark high on his collarbone, pale against gold—but it's not a scar. Not the real one.
That wound, I know without knowing how, is hidden deeper. Lower. Where no eye but a lover's would ever see.
The thought burns hotter than it should.
He looks... relaxed. Too relaxed.
As if binding a girl to the storm, as if tearing a life apart, costs him nothing. As if he has done it a hundred times before, and will do it a hundred times again.
The realization knots something hot and sharp under my ribs.
I hate him. Hate the way he stands there like he knows I'm looking. Hate the way the stormlight slicks along the cut of his jaw, the unruly dark hair falling into his eyes, the dangerous grace of every line of him.
I drag my gaze away before he can see too much.
But it's too late.
His mouth tilts at the corner—a small, infuriating smirk that says he saw everything.
"You are not the first to stand where you stand," he says. "But I feel like you could be the last."
I should laugh. I should spit the words back in his face.
Instead, I hear myself say, voice low and rough:
"But I feel like you could be the last."
Something flashes in his eyes. Not satisfaction. Not anger.
Something quieter. Something older.
Before the moment can twist tighter, I shift the veil against my shoulders, trying to anchor myself to something real.
"How long?" I ask. "How long have I been asleep?"
His gaze sweeps over me, careful and measuring, before he answers.
"Since the stormbound," he says. "A full turning of the sky. It is nearly dusk again."
I blink. A whole day. Gone. Lost to sleep and power and the thing inside me trying to claw its way free.
I sink back into the pillows, breathing hard, the stormveil crackling with every shudder of my chest.
"Is this normal?" I murmur, half to myself. "Sleeping like the dead?"
His mouth tilts again—not a smirk this time. Something almost grim.
"It will pass," he says. "The first time your power awakens, it tries to drown you. Your body sleeps to survive it."
He moves closer, but not enough to touch.
"Each time you endure it," he says, voice like a rough wind against my skin, "you will need less sleep. Until you can stand awake against the storm without breaking."
I want to ask him how he knows. How many others he watched fall and never rise.
But I don't. Not yet.
Because the storm inside me hums again—low and restless—and the veil clings tighter to my skin.
And because somehow, sitting here under his gaze, in a room built from storm and silence, I don't feel broken.
Not yet. Just...dangerous.
🔥 Teaser Line: Somewhere in the heart of the Skycastle, a storm waits with her name carved into its bones. And it just took its first breath.