Aelindra's POV
The lightning tears out of my hands and I have exactly zero control over it.
It explodes across the platform in a wild arc of crimson and white fire. The lead Storm Guard throws up his weapon to block it, but my lightning doesn't care about his fancy shield. It wraps around the metal like a living snake and yanks him forward.
He crashes face-first into the stone with a sickening crunch.
"What the—" Another guard starts, but I'm already moving.
Except I'm not the one moving.
My body spins left without me deciding to, my arm comes up without me controlling it, and more lightning shoots out—precise, deadly, hitting a second guard square in the chest. He flies backward and slams into the wall.
"Stop fighting me!" Raelith's voice roars in my head. "I'm trying to keep you ALIVE!"
"Get out of my body!" I scream back, but my mouth doesn't move. He won't let it.
We're fighting for control of my own limbs, and it's the most horrible feeling I've ever experienced. Like being a puppet with two people pulling the strings in opposite directions.
A third guard lunges at me with a blade crackling with storm-magic. My body—his control—drops into a fighting stance I've never learned and catches the guard's wrist. Lightning shoots up my arm and into his, and he screams.
"DUCK!" Raelith commands.
My body obeys him before I can think. A lightning-spear whistles over my head, so close I feel the heat.
Then suddenly, the control releases and I collapse to my knees, gasping.
"I can't maintain physical control for long," Raelith's voice sounds strained in my mind. "Your body keeps rejecting me. We need to work TOGETHER or we're both dead."
"Together?" I pant, looking up at the three remaining guards circling me warily. "You just hijacked my body!"
"Because you were about to get killed, you stubborn—" He cuts off with what sounds like a mental growl. "Fine. YOU lead. I'll guide. Just DON'T DIE."
The guards attack as one.
This time when I move, it's me—but I can feel Raelith there, like a voice whispering which way to dodge, when to strike, where the next attack is coming from. It's strange and wrong but also... it works.
I roll left. Lightning crackles from my fingers—not wild this time, but focused. It hits a guard's leg and he goes down hard.
Spin right. Duck. My hand shoots up and catches a blade aimed at my throat. The metal burns my palm but I don't let go. Instead, I pour lightning into it until the guard drops the weapon with a yelp.
"Behind you!"
I whirl and blast the last guard before he can grab me.
Then it's over. Six Storm Guards down, groaning or unconscious on the stone platform around me.
I'm standing in the middle of them, lightning still crackling around my hands, breathing hard. I did that. We did that.
"What just happened?" I whisper.
Raelith's translucent form materializes beside me, looking more solid than before. "That," he says with grim satisfaction, "was your first real fight with my power. How do you feel?"
"Sick." I drop to my knees again, and this time it's not from fighting—it's from the realization of what I just did. "I hurt them. I could have killed them."
"They were trying to kill YOU."
"I know! But I've never—I was never violent before. I was the obedient daughter who smiled and followed rules and never even thought about attacking someone."
"That girl is dead," Raelith says flatly. "The Storm Council killed her when they threw you off the Citadel. What's left is someone who'll do what it takes to survive."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"No. It's supposed to make you ALIVE."
I look up at him, this impossible ghost-prince with his glowing eyes and arrogant face, and something inside me cracks.
"I don't want this," I say quietly. "I don't want to be violent. I don't want someone living in my head. I don't want any of this."
His expression softens—just slightly, barely noticeable. "I didn't want seventy years of torture. We don't get to choose our suffering. We only get to choose what we do with it."
"And what are we doing with it?"
"Surviving." He kneels in front of me, his translucent hand reaching out to hover near my face. I can almost feel warmth from it. "And then, when we're strong enough—destroying everyone who put us here."
"Revenge."
"Justice," he corrects. "There's a difference."
"Is there?"
His smile is sharp. "Ask me again after you've watched your sister live the life she stole from you."
Before I can respond, a new voice echoes across the platform—cold, commanding, and terrifyingly familiar.
"How touching. The fallen noble and the shattered prince, bonded by lightning and stupidity."
My blood turns to ice.
High Councilor Moraveth stands at the top of the stairs, flanked by a dozen more Storm Guards. But it's not him that makes my heart stop.
It's the two people standing beside him.
Seraphine. My sister. Wearing storm-silk the color of midnight, her hair perfect, her face twisted with fear and hatred when she sees me alive.
And Cassiel. My ex-fiancé. His handsome face carefully blank, but his eyes—his eyes lock onto mine and I see guilt flash through them before he looks away.
They came. Together. To make sure I was dead.
"Aelindra Stormwrought," Moraveth says, his voice dripping false sympathy. "Or should I say—just Aelindra now, since your family has disowned you. We sensed the lightning strike from the Citadel. Came to retrieve the body." His smile doesn't reach his eyes. "Imagine our surprise to find you breathing."
"Don't engage him," Raelith hisses in my mind. "He's buying time for his guards to surround us."
"More than breathing," I force myself to say, standing on shaking legs. Lightning crackles around my hands again—weaker now, I'm so tired. "Looks like your murder attempt failed."
"Murder?" Moraveth laughs. "Dear child, you were exiled for your crimes. What you did afterward was your choice."
"Liar!" The word explodes from me. "You framed me! You planted that evidence! You—"
"Can prove nothing," he interrupts smoothly. "You're a criminal, stripped of status, making wild accusations against the Storm Council. Who do you think they'll believe?"
Seraphine steps forward, and I see her hand is shaking. Good. She should be scared.
"Sister," she says, her voice that same sweet tone that used to comfort me. "You're sick. The lightning has clearly damaged your mind. Come with us. We'll help you—"
"HELP ME?" The laugh that comes out of me sounds insane even to my own ears. "You DESTROYED me! You and Cassiel! You framed me and threw me away and took EVERYTHING!"
"Aelindra—" Cassiel starts, his voice rough.
"DON'T." I point at him, lightning arcing between my fingers. "Don't say my name. Don't pretend you care. You chose her. You chose your ambition. You chose to betray me."
For a moment—just a moment—real pain crosses his face. "I'm sorry," he whispers.
"Sorry doesn't bring back three months of hell."
"This is a trap," Raelith warns urgently. "The emotional confrontation—it's a distraction. Look at the guards. They're casting a suppression circle."
I tear my eyes from Cassiel and see it—Storm Guards moving into positions around the platform, their hands glowing with coordinated magic.
"Going somewhere?" Moraveth asks pleasantly. "I think not. You see, that power you're carrying? It doesn't belong to you. It belongs to us. The Storm Council has been harvesting storm essence for generations, and you've just absorbed something very valuable."
"He knows," Raelith's voice goes deadly quiet. "He knows what you did. What we are."
"Impossible," I breathe.
"Oh, it's very possible." Moraveth's smile widens. "Did you think you were the first exile to climb the Tempest Spire seeking power? You're the first to survive. And do you know why? Because you have Storm Keeper blood—a bloodline we thought extinct."
He steps closer, and I see hunger in his eyes. Not for me. For what's inside me.
"Your family kept it secret for generations," he continues. "Bred it out through careful marriages. But sometimes old blood wakes up. Like it did in you." His gaze drops to the glowing mark on my chest. "And when you struck yourself with lightning during the Crimson Storm—well. You didn't just absorb power. You absorbed a consciousness we've been draining for seventy years."
"RUN," Raelith commands. "NOW!"
But before I can move, Moraveth raises his hand and the suppression circle activates.
Magic slams into me like a physical wall. My lightning sputters out. The power in my veins goes sluggish, heavy. Even Raelith's presence dims in my mind.
I drop to my knees, gasping.
"The circle suppresses storm magic," Moraveth explains, walking closer. "All storm magic. Including whatever you're carrying." He crouches in front of me, studying my face like I'm an interesting bug. "Here's what's going to happen. We're going to extract that consciousness from your heart. It will be excruciatingly painful, and you'll almost certainly die. But the Storm Council thanks you for your service."
Terror floods through me. "Raelith?"
His voice comes back weak, distant: "Can't... maintain... form..."
His translucent body flickers and starts to fade.
"No!" I reach for him but my hand passes through empty air. "Don't leave me!"
"Not... leaving... being... pulled..."
Then his presence in my mind goes silent.
I'm alone in my head for the first time since the lightning struck, and the emptiness is worse than having him there.
Moraveth signals to his guards. "Bring her. Carefully. The extraction ritual requires she be alive when we begin."
They grab my arms—too many of them, I can't fight—and start dragging me toward the stairs.
Seraphine watches with her hand over her mouth. Cassiel has turned away completely.
No one is going to save me.
"Help," I try to scream through the bond, pushing the thought as hard as I can. "RAELITH, HELP!"
Nothing. Just silence where he should be.
The guards force me down the first step, and I realize with cold horror that this is how it ends. Not with glory or revenge, but dragged back to the Council to be torn apart.
Then—from deep inside my chest, where the mark still glows—I feel something shift.
The dual heartbeat returns.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
And a voice, barely a whisper but furious:
"Touch her again... and I'll show you... what a Storm King... can really do."
The mark on my chest explodes with light.