Elara's POV
I ran.
My feet slipped in the mud but I kept going. Behind me, the sky was breaking apart. Cracks of light spread across the darkness like the world itself was shattering.
"Running won't help," Zephyrion said.
His voice came from everywhere at once. The wind carried it. The rain whispered it. I spun around and he was right there—ten feet away, standing perfectly still while the storm raged around him.
"You can't escape a bond, little spark." He tilted his head, watching me like I was some interesting bug. "I feel every beat of your terrified heart. Your fear tastes like metal on my tongue."
"Stay away from me!" I backed up, tripped over my own feet, and fell hard.
He was in front of me before I hit the ground. His hand caught my arm, stopping my fall, and the touch sent electricity racing through my whole body.
Not painful electricity. The other kind. The kind that made every nerve ending wake up and pay attention.
I jerked away from him. "Don't touch me!"
"Too late for that." He held up his hand. The mark on his chest glowed brighter, and mine answered it, burning hot under my dress. "We're connected now. Your soul called mine through eight hundred years of imprisonment. Do you have any idea what you've done?"
"I didn't mean to!" My voice cracked. "I didn't even know you existed!"
"Ignorance doesn't change reality." He moved closer, and I scrambled backward through the mud. "You have Guardian-Caller blood. Your family sealed it when you were born, locked away your power so you couldn't do exactly this. But seals break. And when yours shattered—"
Thunder exploded overhead, cutting him off.
Through the torn sky, shapes moved. Huge things made of storm and fury, circling like sharks that smelled blood.
Zephyrion's face went hard. "They're coming faster than I thought."
"What are those things?"
"My brothers. My sisters. Other Guardians who've been caged for centuries." His eyes met mine, and for a second, I saw something almost like worry. "They're angry, little spark. Very angry. And you just rang the dinner bell."
My stomach dropped. "Dinner bell?"
"Guardian-Callers used to bond with us as partners. But three hundred years ago, storm-callers learned to enslave us, to steal our power." His hands clenched into fists. "When they feel a true bond forming, they'll come to stop it. By killing you."
The words didn't make sense. None of this made sense.
"I don't understand," I whispered. "I just wanted the pain to stop. I didn't want any of this."
Something changed in his expression. The hardness cracked, just a little.
"I know," he said quietly. "I felt it. Your grief. Your shame. The way they broke you piece by piece until you thought you were nothing." He crouched down in front of me, eye level now. "But you're not nothing, Elara Thornwick. You're the first true Guardian-Caller born in three hundred years. And that makes you very dangerous."
"I'm not dangerous. I'm nobody."
"You're wrong." His finger touched the mark on my chest—just through the fabric, not skin to skin, but I still felt it like fire. "This bond means I can't leave you. Your death would drag me back to my prison. Your pain is my pain. And if enemies come for you—" his eyes blazed silver-white, "—I'll destroy them."
"Why?" I demanded. "Why would you protect someone you don't even know?"
"Because I have no choice!" The words burst out of him, raw and angry. "The bond compels me! I didn't ask for this any more than you did!"
We stared at each other. Both of us trapped. Both of us furious about it.
Then the sky screamed.
A bolt of corrupted lightning—black and wrong—struck the ground between us. We both jumped back as the earth exploded.
Through the smoke, figures dropped from the torn sky. Five of them. Storm-callers in fancy armor, with magic crackling around their hands.
The one in front smiled. Duke Aldric.
"There you are, Elara." He said my name like he owned it. "We've been looking everywhere for you."
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. He looked so calm, so handsome, so normal. Like he hadn't destroyed my entire life two hours ago.
"She was struck by lightning," Aldric continued, walking closer. "Poor thing probably doesn't even know where she is. We'll take her home, treat her wounds—"
"Liar." My voice surprised me. Strong. Clear. "You're not here to help me."
His smile faltered. "Elara, be reasonable—"
"I felt the bond wake up," another storm-caller interrupted. A woman with white hair and cold eyes. "She summoned a Guardian. That's impossible unless she's a Caller."
"Exactly," Aldric said, and his fake kindness vanished. "Which means she's worth more than I thought. Catch her alive. Kill the Guardian."
They attacked.
Five streams of lightning converged on Zephyrion. He didn't even move. Just raised one hand, and the lightning bent around him like water around a rock.
"Interesting." His voice was ice. "You use Guardian power but have no respect for Guardians. Let me teach you the difference."
He vanished.
Not moved fast—vanished. Then reappeared behind the white-haired woman. One touch, and she screamed as electricity coursed through her body. She dropped like a puppet with cut strings.
"That's one," Zephyrion said calmly.
The other four attacked together. The field exploded into chaos—lightning and wind and power so strong the ground cracked under my feet.
I couldn't just sit here. I had to do something.
But what? I had no training, no control, no idea how to use this power burning inside me.
The mark on my chest throbbed. Hot. Insistent. Like it was trying to tell me something.
Feel me, a voice whispered in my mind. Zephyrion's voice, but distant. Feel the bond. Use it.
I closed my eyes and reached for the connection between us.
It hit like a tidal wave.
His emotions poured into me—rage and battle-joy and underneath it all, desperate fear. Not for himself. For me. He was terrified they'd hurt me.
And I felt his power. Massive and ancient and terrible, flowing through the bond like a river.
Could I touch it? Use it?
I reached deeper—
Pain exploded through my skull. I screamed and opened my eyes to find Aldric standing over me, his hand wrapped around my throat.
"Found you," he hissed.
Zephyrion roared. The sound made the sky tremble.
But three storm-callers held him back with binding spells, chains made of corrupted lightning wrapped around his arms and legs.
"Let her go," Zephyrion snarled. Power leaked from him in waves, making the chains crack and spark.
"No, I don't think I will." Aldric's grip tightened. "A Guardian-Caller is too valuable to let slip away. With her power and my control, I could rule the entire Storm Court."
Black spots danced in my vision. I couldn't breathe.
"Kill the Guardian," Aldric ordered. "I'll handle the girl."
One of the storm-callers pulled out a crystal. It glowed with sick green light that made my stomach turn just looking at it.
"Guardian-bane," Zephyrion whispered. Through the bond, I felt his recognition. His fear.
The storm-caller pressed the crystal to Zephyrion's chest.
He screamed.
Not a normal scream—the sound of a storm dying, of lightning burning from the inside out. His agony flooded through the bond and into me, and I screamed with him.
"Stop!" I choked out. "Please, stop!"
"Not until he's dead," the storm-caller said, pushing the crystal harder.
Zephyrion fell to his knees. The marks on his skin flickered and dimmed. Through the bond, I felt him dying.
No. No, no, no—
Something inside me snapped.
Power exploded from my body in a wave of silver-white light. Not my power. Not Zephyrion's power. Something new. Something born from both of us together.
The storm-callers flew backward. Aldric's hand ripped away from my throat. The Guardian-bane crystal shattered into dust.
I stood up slowly. My whole body glowed with that silver-white light.
"Don't," I said, and my voice echoed with thunder, "touch him again."
Lightning struck down from the sky. Not their corrupted black lightning. Pure white bolts that danced around me like living things, waiting for my command.
The storm-callers stared at me in horror.
"Impossible," Aldric breathed. "She's untrained. She shouldn't be able to—"
I raised my hand, and the lightning obeyed.
It struck the ground at their feet. A warning.
"Run," I said. "Before I forget to aim for the ground."
They ran.
All of them, even Aldric, retreating into the broken sky and vanishing.
The light faded from my body. The lightning disappeared. And I collapsed.
Zephyrion caught me before I hit the ground.
"Easy," he murmured. "Easy, little spark. You're safe now."
"Did I really just..." I couldn't finish the sentence.
"You wielded Guardian lightning." His voice held something like awe. "Untrained, unbound, you channeled power that should have killed you. You're either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid."
"Probably both," I whispered.
He almost smiled. Then his expression went serious.
"They'll be back. With more storm-callers. More weapons. And next time, they won't be gentle." He looked down at me, those hurricane eyes seeing right through me. "We have two choices. I can sever the bond right now—it will hurt, but you'll live as a normal human. Or—"
"Or?" I asked.
"Or we run. Together. And I teach you how to survive in a world that wants you dead."
My heart pounded. Behind him, the sky was still torn open. Through it, I saw movement. More Guardians circling. More enemies coming.
"If I choose to run," I said slowly, "what happens to you?"
His jaw tightened. "I stay bound to you. Protecting you. Following you. Unable to leave even if I wanted to."
"Do you want to?"
He was quiet for a long moment. Then: "I don't know."
Honest, at least.
I looked at the mark on my chest, then at his. Matching. Pulsing in time like two halves of one heartbeat.
Maybe I was stupid. Maybe I was broken and making terrible choices.
But for the first time in my life, I had power. Real power. And someone who couldn't abandon me even if he tried.
"Teach me," I said.
Zephyrion's eyes widened slightly. Then he nodded once.
"Then we leave. Now." He stood, pulling me up with him. "There's a place in the Hollows where they won't look for you. A place where the powerless hide. We'll go there, and I'll teach you everything you need to know about being a Guardian-Caller."
"The Hollows?" I'd never been there. Noble girls didn't visit the magicless slums.
"Perfect place for the girl everyone thinks is dead." He held out his hand. "Trust me?"
I looked at that hand. Strong. Marked with storm-patterns. Connected to mine by a bond I didn't understand.
Then I took it.
Power surged between us—not violent this time, but steady. Like coming home.
Zephyrion's fingers tightened around mine. "Hold on."
The world exploded into lightning and wind. We shot upward into the broken sky, past the circling Guardians, past the storm clouds, until the whole realm spread out below us like a map.
"Where are we going?" I shouted over the wind.
He looked back at me, silver hair whipping around his face.
"Somewhere they'll never think to look," he said. "And little spark? The real training starts tomorrow. By the time I'm done with you, they'll wish they'd let you stay powerless."
We dove down through the clouds toward the dark maze of the Hollows.
Behind us, the sky sealed itself shut.
And above us, I heard a voice—ancient and terrible—whisper through the wind:
"The seal is broken. The Caller lives. Send word to the High Storm Caller. We have a problem."