Aelindra's POV
The last step nearly killed me.
My leg gave out halfway up, and I crashed against the stone stairs, tasting blood. My vision blurred. My heart hammered so hard I thought it might burst through my ribs.
"Get up," I gasped at myself. "You didn't climb this far to die on the stairs."
But my body had other ideas. It wanted to lie down. Wanted to sleep. Wanted to give up.
Five more steps, the prince's voice urged. Just five more and you're at the summit.
"I can't."
Yes, you can. Because down there in the Apex Citadel, your sister is probably preparing for her wedding. Picking out her dress. Choosing flowers. Living YOUR life.
Rage flooded through my exhaustion like fire through dry grass.
I got up.
Four steps. Three. Two.
One.
The doorway to the summit platform blazed before me, filled with crimson light. Wind howled through it like the sky itself was screaming.
I stepped through and the storm hit me with the force of a physical blow.
The Tempest Spire's summit was a circular platform of ancient stone, open to the sky on all sides. No walls. No shelter. Nothing between me and the full fury of the Crimson Storm.
And what a fury it was.
The sky had turned completely red—not sunset red, but deep crimson like a fresh wound. Lightning didn't just flash anymore; it danced, hundreds of bolts arcing between clouds in patterns that looked almost alive. Thunder shook the stone beneath my feet with every crack.
The wind tried to throw me off the edge immediately.
I dropped to my knees, clinging to the rough stone, and crawled toward the center of the platform. Rain lashed my face. My clothes were plastered to my body. I couldn't see more than a few feet through the chaos.
"I'M HERE!" I screamed, but the wind stole my words. "I CAME LIKE YOU ASKED!"
No answer. Just storm and fury and the terrifying certainty that I was completely, utterly alone at the highest point in Stormhaven during the deadliest storm in decades.
What had I been thinking?
Stand up, the prince commanded. You can't receive the lightning on your knees.
"I'll blow away!"
Then blow away. Or stand and face your destiny. Choose.
I chose.
Fighting every instinct screaming at me to stay low, stay safe, I forced myself to stand. The wind immediately tried to knock me down. I spread my legs wider, finding balance.
Below me, through brief gaps in the crimson clouds, I could see all of Stormhaven spread out like a map. The Apex Citadel glowing with storm-shields. The Middle Tiers dark and hunkered down. The Lower Drifts barely visible in the distance.
Somewhere down there, Miri was hiding, praying I'd survive.
Somewhere down there, Seraphine and Cassiel were probably celebrating, thinking I was dead or broken beyond repair.
They were about to learn how wrong they were.
I walked to the edge of the platform—the very edge, where one wrong step meant a fall that would definitely kill me this time—and spread my arms wide.
"DO YOU SEE ME?" I screamed at the storm, at the Council, at everyone who'd thrown me away. "I'M STILL HERE! STILL ALIVE! AND I'M NOT GOING ANYWHERE!"
Lightning answered, striking the platform twenty feet to my left. The stone exploded. Heat washed over me.
"IS THAT YOUR BEST?" I laughed, wild and reckless. "THEN YOU'RE AS WEAK AS THEY SAID!"
Another bolt, closer this time. Then another. The storm was responding to my challenge, circling me like a predator deciding whether I was prey or threat.
Careful, the prince warned. Taunting cosmic forces is generally unwise.
"Wisdom is for people who have something to lose!"
I tilted my head back, letting the rain pour down my face, and screamed with everything I had left:
"SEVENTY YEARS AGO, YOU TOOK A PRINCE! YOU SCATTERED HIM ACROSS EVERY STORM! WELL, I'M HERE TO TAKE HIM BACK! AND IF YOU WON'T GIVE HIM TO ME, IF YOU WON'T GIVE ME THE POWER TO DESTROY EVERYONE WHO WRONGED US, THEN STRIKE ME DOWN RIGHT NOW! KILL ME! BECAUSE I'M NOT LEAVING THIS TOWER UNTIL ONE OF US WINS!"
The storm went completely silent.
The wind stopped. The thunder ceased. Even the rain paused, drops hanging in the air like the world had been frozen.
In that impossible stillness, I heard the prince's voice, clearer than ever:
Here it comes.
The sky exploded.
Lightning—pure crimson lightning—erupted from every direction at once. Not striking the platform, but converging on a single point.
On me.
I had one second to think Oh no, what have I done—
Then the lightning hit.
Pain.
That's the only word, but it's not enough. It's not even close.
Every nerve in my body caught fire simultaneously. My heart stopped. My lungs froze. My brain tried to shut down, tried to escape into unconsciousness, but the lightning wouldn't let me.
It held me there, in that moment of pure agony, and changed me.
I felt the seals—those chains wrapped around my core since I was a baby—shatter completely. They didn't just break; they exploded into a million pieces that burned away like paper in a furnace.
And what they'd been holding back rushed free.
Power. Ancient, terrible, furious power that had been sleeping inside me my entire life.
But it wasn't just my power awakening.
It was his.
The Stormforged Prince's consciousness flooded into me along with the lightning. Seventy years of scattered existence, of torture, of being aware but unable to act, of watching the Council destroy everything he'd loved—all of it poured into my mind at once.
I screamed. He screamed. Our voices merged into something that wasn't quite human anymore.
Let me in, he commanded. Your heart. I need your heart to anchor me.
"IT HURTS!"
I KNOW! DO IT ANYWAY!
I don't know how I did it. Don't know if it was magic or instinct or desperation. But I opened something inside my chest—not physically, but spiritually—and let him in.
His essence rushed into my heart like water into a drowning person's lungs. Wrong and terrible and absolutely necessary.
We merged.
Not completely. Not yet. But enough that I could feel him there, a second consciousness wrapped around my own. His rage bleeding into mine. His memories becoming mine. His power—oh storm above, his power—settling into my bones like it had been waiting to come home.
The lightning intensified, and I realized with distant horror that I was glowing. Light poured from my skin, from my eyes, from the storm-marks appearing across my arms and neck and face.
I was being rewritten from the inside out.
Made into something that could hold a prince's shattered soul.
Made into a weapon.
Yes, the prince hissed in satisfaction. Yes, this is perfect. You're perfect. Together we're going to burn them all.
"Together," I agreed through gritted teeth.
The lightning pulsed one final time—so bright I couldn't see, so hot I smelled my own hair burning—and then it was over.
The storm pulled back. The wind returned to normal levels. The rain fell like rain instead of knives.
I collapsed to my knees, gasping, my entire body shaking.
But I was alive.
Against every law of nature and magic, I was alive.
And I wasn't alone anymore.
Can you hear me? the prince's voice asked, no longer distant but right there, in my head, in my heart, in every beat of my pulse.
"Yes," I whispered. "I hear you."
Good. Now look up.
I lifted my head, confused.
A figure stood before me on the platform—translucent and flickering like a reflection in disturbed water, but definitely there. A man who looked maybe twenty-eight, devastatingly beautiful in a way that seemed almost cruel. Silver-white hair that moved like living clouds. Eyes that glowed gold with silver cracks—exactly like mine did now. Features too perfect, too sharp, marking him as something more than human.
Storm-marks covered his visible skin, patterns of frozen lightning.
He looked down at me with an expression of cold satisfaction.
"Hello, little exile," Prince Raelith Skyrender said out loud, his voice like thunder given words. "Welcome to your new life."
I stared at him, at this impossible ghost made of storm-light and fury.
"You're real," I breathed.
"As real as someone trapped in your heart can be." He knelt before me, and even kneeling, his presence was overwhelming. "We're bound now. Literally. My consciousness exists inside your heart. Every beat sustains me. Every breath you take, I feel. If you die..." His expression darkened. "I return to seventy years of scattered agony."
"So you need me alive."
"Desperately." His smile was sharp and dangerous. "Which means I'll do everything in my considerable power to keep you that way. Even if it means destroying everyone who threatens you."
"What about what I need?"
"You need revenge. So do I. Our enemies are the same—the Storm Council that imprisoned me and destroyed you. We want the same things, you and I."
"And if we don't?"
His translucent hand reached out, cupping my face with fingers that felt almost solid, almost warm. "Then we'll make each other miserable until one of us breaks. But I don't think you'll break easily, Aelindra. You survived my lightning. That makes you either the strongest person I've ever met or the most stubborn."
"Both," I said.
He laughed—a sound like distant thunder. "Perfect. I was worried you'd be boring."
Before I could respond, his expression changed. Went sharp and alert.
"Someone's coming," he said. "Multiple someones. Storm Guards, probably. They felt the lightning strike and know someone's up here."
"How many?"
"Does it matter?" He stood, pulling me up with him. His hand felt more solid now, like the bond between us was stabilizing. "You have my power now. Let's see what you can do with it."
"I don't know how to—"
"Then learn fast." He stepped back, and his form flickered. "I'll guide you. But the magic has to come from you. Call the lightning. Like you did before you lost your Storm Chosen status."
"That was different. That was controlled and gentle and—"
"And weak." His eyes flashed. "Stop thinking like a noble who was taught to use magic politely. You're not that person anymore. Call it like you own it. Because now? You do."
Footsteps echoed from the stairwell. Armored boots on stone.
The Storm Guards were almost here.
I took a deep breath and reached for the power now living in my chest. It answered immediately, eagerly, flooding through my veins like liquid fire.
Lightning crackled around my hands—not polite blue sparks, but wild crimson and white that danced between my fingers like it was alive.
"That's better," Raelith said with approval. "Now let's introduce you to your enemies. The new you. The one they should have killed when they had the chance."
Six Storm Guards burst onto the platform, weapons drawn.
They froze when they saw me standing there, glowing with storm-light, lightning arcing around my body, my eyes blazing gold and silver.
The lead guard's face went pale. "Impossible..."
"Nothing's impossible," I said, and my voice echoed with two tones—mine and Raelith's overlapping. "You just threw the wrong girl off the Citadel."
Then I smiled.
And struck.