“No,” I said, stepping closer, feeling the static rising in my chest. “What’s not fair is being paraded in front of Fourth Guildlike some toy you’re too ashamed to name. What’s not fair is watching yourbrotherescort your fiancée to the ascension while you stay silent.”
Acrackof thunder exploded overhead.
Zander’s eyes snapped to the sky. “Ashe…”
The wind picked up around us, snapping through the courtyard like it had teeth.
“You don’t get to be angry,” I hissed, fists clenched at my sides. “You don’t get to demand loyalty from me when you’ve shown none in return.”
“Kaelith isn’t anchoring you?—”
“I know!”
Lightning burst above us, forked and violent, and heat poured across my skin like the sun itself had come too close.
Zander took a step forward, hand half-raised. “You’re going to lose control.”
“Iamalready lost,” I snarled.
The sky screamed with another bolt. The ground beneath us trembled, and the dragons called out from the isle.
I couldn’t stop it.
I didn’twantto.
Because for the first time since Kaelith turned her back on me…
I wanted the storm.
Chapter
Sixteen
The wind howled like a living thing, tearing through the courtyard with feral claws, whipping my hair loose from its braid as the clouds above churned into a violent, swirling mass. The sky darkened so quickly it felt like dusk had fallen all over again, cloaking the castle in a veil of ash-colored shadow.
Lightning forked in brutal cracks across the heavens, blinding arcs that hissed down and kissed the stones with fire. One struck ten feet from where I stood, exploding into sparks and leaving a scorched crater in the earth.
My ears rang, and the raw, humming burn of power surged through me like a rising tide, ancient and wild anddonewith being caged.
The other people on the grounds had fled. I barely registered their silhouettes diving for cover.
But Zander didn’t run.
He grabbed me.
His arm locked around my waist, dragging me against his chest as another bolt forked through the sky, lighting us both in flashes of blue-white fire. The earth trembled beneath our boots, stones groaning as the magic clawed through the castle’s bones.
“Ashe!” he shouted against the wind. His voice sounded far away, like it had to cross through a thousand storms just to reach me.
But I didn’t answer.
Because there was only thepower.
It burned through me, hot and cold, ice and flame, grief and rage. Kaelith’s absence throbbed like a missing limb.
It’ll be over soon, I told myself.
Kaelith would be free.
