Pain seared my eyes. I covered them instinctively, ears ringing from the thunder’s crack. I dropped to my knees, the world spinning, unable to tell which way was up or down.
Behind me came more crashes, more thunder.
Roars. Screeches. Kael’s guttural grunts amid the storm of vines and lightning.
It wouldn’t stop.
Then something yanked me back, cold coils wrapping my arms, my legs, tightening around my throat.
It smelled of dead flesh and rot.
The blight had caught me. Its vines seared my skin, and I screamed. I forced my eyes open, the world a blur of white and shadow.
Through it, I saw Kael, a silhouette of power, flashes of light threading through him like a wild storm.
“Kael!” The cry tore from me, strangled by the vines crushing my throat.
I thrashed, desperate, the smell of my own burning flesh filling the air. My scream broke to silence.
White swallowed my vision, but not from lightning, nor lack of breath.
I was losing control.
Even so, Kael heard me. He turned, a figure of darkness wreathed in living light.
He strode toward me, power gathering at his fingertips, ready to strike the creature that bound me.
But if he struck now, I would burn with it.
Something was wrong. The air around us thickened, humming with fury. Kael was drowning in his own unstoppable rage.
Why?
Light exploded. My vision shattered.
And then I felt it—a burn deeper than the vines, a fire that seared my shoulder. The lightning scar. Kael’s mark.
And when his lightning touched me, I saw a little boy with hair like hay, standing in this same forest, near this very village, bursting into thunder.
Chapter 19
Evie
The smell of ash reached my nostrils. I was on the ground, knees and palms in the dirt, eyes closed. Silence wrapped the world.
I opened my eyes. My vision steadied, and the searing pain in my shoulder began to fade, though my head still rang and my skin still burned where the vines had struck.
What had just happened? Ash drifted around me like snow. Behind me, the creature was gone, its body scattered into pale dust across the floor.
I lifted my head toward Kael’s last known position, and our eyes met. He looked at me with startled wonder, lips parted, lightning crackling faintly around his hand and arm. Then, with a slow clench of his fist, the bolts sank back into his skin, and a strange calm fell over him.
His eyes were lighter. His features, softer.
“What happened?” I asked, pushing myself upright.
He stepped closer, careful, curious. “I didn’t know it was possible…” His voice was low, like he spoke half to himself.
He came so near I felt his breath, cool and mint-laced, brush my cheek. His hands found my face, and for a heartbeat I thought he meant to kiss me. Instead, his gaze searched me, my face, my neck, the scar…
