Celeste's POV
"Get inside!" Riven shouts, grabbing my arm as another lightning bolt strikes dangerously close. "Those storms aren't natural!"
But I can't move. Can't look away.
The lightning is dancing. Actually dancing—weaving patterns in the air that almost look like... words? Symbols? I don't know. But it's definitely not random.
"It's responding to me," I whisper.
"That's impossible." Riven pulls harder. "You're stripped. You have no magic left for it to sense."
Another bolt strikes, so close I feel the heat. The ash around it melts into black glass.
But I'm not afraid.
I should be terrified. Instead, I feel something I haven't felt since the stripping—a connection. Faint, like an echo of an echo, but real.
The lightning recognizes something in me.
Riven finally succeeds in dragging me back to his shelter. It's small and cramped, built from scavenged stone and metal. But it's dry and warm, with a small fire crackling in the corner.
"Sit," he orders, pushing me onto a rough bench. "Before you get yourself killed doing something stupid."
"Too late for that." I watch the lightning through the doorway. "I already decided to walk into the Stormrift."
"Then you're insane." Riven paces back and forth, agitated. "Do you understand what those storms are? After the Radiant Court murdered the Lightning-Blessed, they sealed the most powerful storms—the ones that wouldn't stop raging—into the Deadlands. Trapped them there with blood magic and death curses. Anyone who enters gets torn apart by lightning that's been hungry for a thousand years."
"Good," I say flatly. "Maybe that's exactly what I deserve."
"Stop that." Riven crouches in front of me, forcing me to meet his eyes. "Stop acting like your life is worthless. You survived the fall. You survived three days in the ash when nobles die in hours. You're stronger than you think."
"I'm powerless," I correct him. "Stripped. Broken. What strength is there in that?"
"The strength to keep breathing when everything says you should give up." His scarred face is fierce. "That's the only strength that matters down here."
I want to believe him. But the emptiness inside me is too vast.
"Tell me about the Lightning-Blessed," I say, changing the subject. "Everything you know."
Riven sighs and sits back. "Not much to tell. The Radiant Court killed them all a thousand years ago and rewrote history to make it seem justified. But people down here—people who've dug through forbidden archives or stumbled on hidden documents—we know bits and pieces of the truth."
"Like what?"
"Like the Lightning-Blessed weren't monsters. They were just people with different magic." His voice grows bitter. "But their lightning power was stronger than the Sky Lords' sun magic. So the Sky Lords—ancestors of your precious Radiant Court—invited the Lightning-Blessed royal family to a peace summit. And slaughtered them all in a single night."
My stomach twists. Just like what happened to me. A trap disguised as trust.
"They didn't stop there," Riven continues. "They hunted down every Lightning-Blessed person across the continent. Men, women, children—didn't matter. Killed them all and stole their power, absorbing it into their own bloodlines. That's where the Radiant Court's 'divine magic' comes from. It's not divine. It's stolen."
"The documents I found said the same thing," I murmur. "Names. Dates. Detailed records of the massacre. High Priestess Serath's ancestors led the genocide personally."
"And she's still hunting." Riven's hands clench into fists. "Any descendant, even if they're just one-quarter Lightning-Blessed, even if they can barely spark a flame—she finds them and eliminates them. That's what I refused to help with. That's why I'm down here."
We sit in silence for a moment, both lost in dark thoughts.
"The Stormrift," I finally say. "What exactly is sealed there?"
Riven hesitates. "No one knows for sure. But legend says the Lightning-Blessed royal family had a secret—something so powerful that the Sky Lords couldn't destroy it. So they sealed it in eternal storms instead, buried it so deep that no one would ever find it."
"What kind of secret?"
"If I knew that, I wouldn't be living in an ash pile." He stands and adds more fuel to the fire. "Some say it's a weapon. Others think it's the Lightning-Blessed king's crown, which supposedly held unimaginable power. A few crazy people believe there's actually a Lightning-Blessed survivor trapped in there, sealed in the storms like a living prison."
My heart skips. "A survivor? After a thousand years?"
"Just stories," Riven says quickly. "No one could survive that long. The storms would drive them mad, fragment their soul, destroy everything that made them human. Even if someone was sealed there, they'd be more monster than person by now."
But something in his words resonates with me. The way the lightning followed me down. The way it's still dancing outside, almost like it's waiting.
What if someone is in there? Someone who's been screaming for a thousand years with no one to hear them?
"I'm going," I say firmly. "Tomorrow at dawn."
"You'll die."
"I'm already dead, Riven. They killed who I was the moment they stripped my magic. Now I'm just a ghost looking for a reason to finally disappear."
"And if you find something in there?" he challenges. "If by some miracle you survive, what then? You're still powerless. Still exiled. Still alone."
"Then at least I'll die knowing I tried to hurt them back." I meet his eyes. "Even if I can't expose the truth myself, maybe I can find something—anything—that proves they're liars and murderers. Maybe I can plant one seed of doubt before I'm gone."
Riven studies me for a long moment. Then he nods slowly. "You remind me of someone. A young woman I served with in the Royal Guard. She refused to back down from anything, no matter how impossible. Refused to let the world break her, even when it tried its hardest."
"What happened to her?"
"Prince Aldric had her executed for speaking against him." His voice goes cold. "She was twenty-two years old."
We both fall silent again.
"Get some rest," Riven finally says. "If you're determined to walk into those storms, you should at least do it with your strength up. I'll wake you before dawn."
I lie down on the hard bench, not expecting to sleep. But exhaustion pulls me under within minutes.
I dream of lightning. Of storms that rage with fury and pain. Of a voice screaming in thunder, begging for someone—anyone—to break the chains.
Find me, the voice whispers. Please. Find me.
Riven shakes me awake when the sky starts to lighten. "Last chance to change your mind."
I sit up, my broken ribs protesting. "I'm going."
He hands me a water skin and some dried food. "Take these. You'll need them."
"You think I'll survive long enough to need food?"
"Hope springs eternal." His attempt at humor falls flat. "Listen, if by some insane chance you do survive... there's a camp marker system. Follow the black stones west, and you'll find us again."
"I won't be coming back," I tell him honestly.
"Maybe not. But I've learned never to underestimate desperate people." He walks me to the edge of camp. "The Lightning-Blessed had a saying, according to the old texts: 'The storm chooses its own.' Maybe you're meant for this. Maybe you're not. Either way, you'll die on your feet instead of on your knees."
"Thank you," I say quietly. "For saving me. For giving me a reason to try one more time."
Riven nods. "Die well, Storm-Caller."
I turn toward the Stormrift Deadlands. The lightning storms rage on the horizon, a wall of electric fury that never stops. The sight should terrify me.
Instead, it feels like coming home.
I start walking.
The ash gives way to burned earth. Then to scorched stone. The temperature rises with each step—heat from a thousand years of constant lightning strikes.
The wind picks up, howling like a wounded animal. Thunder shakes the ground beneath my feet.
I should turn back.
I keep walking.
The first bolt of lightning streaks past me, so close I smell the ozone. Then another. And another.
But none of them hit me.
They're dancing around me again, weaving patterns, almost like they're... guiding me?
The burned earth cracks beneath my feet. And rising from the cracks, I see it—a faint blue glow, getting brighter with each step I take.
Ancient magic. Lightning magic.
The kind that hasn't been seen in a thousand years.
My stripped magic is gone forever. But something else is waking up inside me. Something that was always there, buried so deep the stripping ritual couldn't reach it.
Lightning-Blessed blood.
Distant, diluted, but real.
I'm a descendant. That's why the lightning recognizes me. That's why I survived when I shouldn't have.
The storms part ahead of me like a curtain.
And in the heart of the tempest, I see a structure—massive and crystalline, covered in glowing seals that pulse with dark magic. Prison seals. Torture seals.
And trapped inside, swirling with the lightning, is something that was once human.
Something that's been screaming for a thousand years.
I walk forward, my hand outstretched.
The moment my fingers touch the crystal seal, the entire Stormrift explodes with light.
And a voice—ancient, powerful, and utterly broken—roars through my mind:
FINALLY.