They left Ashborne three days after the Festival of First Flames, heading north toward the mountain kingdoms where reports spoke of strange storms that killed without warning, lightning that struck from clear skies, winds that tore people from the ground and carried them away. It was the kind of threat that required their intervention—supernatural, deadly, and beyond mortal capacity to combat or understand.
Aurora had chosen to stay behind for a few months, wanting to study with the scholars at Ashborne's university, to learn more about the theoretical frameworks mortals had developed for understanding elemental forces. At thirty, she was coming into her own as a guardian, developing her own philosophy about how to wield power responsibly, and both Selena and Dante encouraged her independence even as they missed her presence.
