"Run," I repeated.
She ran.
I stood up, legs shaking so badly I had to catch myself on the vendor's stall. The wood was rough under my scarified palms. My back screamed. My vision swam.
When I looked up, Brother Torum was staring directly at me from across the square.
His hand went to his pendant. His lips moved—reporting my position to the others through the communication spell. Sister Vesla appeared from behind a bakery stall. Brother Kayne emerged from near the fountain. They began moving toward me with that terrible patient efficiency. Not running. Not drawing attention. Just closing in like they had all the time in the world.
Which is exactly why I can't stay here.
I stumbled into Grand Lightning Plaza and the world tilted sideways.
The plaza was packed. Hundreds of people crowded around a raised platform of polished steel in the square's center, their bodies pressing together in a density that would have horrified the cult's spacing protocols. Colorful canvas awnings shaded merchant stalls selling everything from spices to clockwork toys—mechanical birds that actually flew, tiny automatons that danced when you wound their keys. The air smelled like roasted nuts and something sharp and electric that made my nose itch. Ozone, maybe. Lightning-smell.
I pressed my hand against a lamp post to steady myself. The metal was warm under my palm. Not hot like the oil lamps at the temple, just pleasantly warm. Humming slightly. I could feel the vibration through the scarification on my skin.
My vision swam. I needed to find the Storm Lord's citadel. Needed to ask someone where it was. Needed to—
"Behold!" A voice rang out across the plaza, carrying over the crowd noise with unnatural clarity. It had an electric undertone that made my skin prickle. "Communication across distances!"
The crowd pressed forward. I was pulled with them, too weak to resist. Bodies surrounded me on all sides—merchants in practical wool, wealthy citizens in silk, workers still dusted with their morning labor. All of them staring at the platform with mesmerized attention.
I saw him.
He stood on the polished steel platform like he owned it, like he'd been born standing on stages with crowds worshiping at his feet. Tall and lean, probably in his early thirties, with storm-gray hair that seemed to move with its own static electricity. Individual strands lifted and fell without any wind, catching the light like silver threads.
His eyes were the most impossible thing about him. They shifted between silver and electric blue as he gestured, the color change smooth and continuous like watching weather move across the sky. When he turned his head to address someone in the crowd, the light caught his face—sharp cheekbones, a straight nose, lips that curved easily into smiles that looked genuine rather than performative.
He wore practical clothing in shades of midnight and silver. A long coat with lightning-strike embroidery across the shoulders, the silver thread catching light with every movement. Dark trousers tucked into boots that looked designed for both elegance and movement—supple leather with metalreinforcement at the heel and toe. His shirt was simple, open at the collar, revealing the hollow of his throat.
His hands moved as he spoke, and electricity sparked between his fingers. Actual lightning, barely contained, dancing from fingertip to fingertip in tiny arcs that should have burned him but didn't. He held a glass sphere filled with crackling lightning bolts, shaping them into different forms with casual gestures—a bird, a ship, a tree with branching limbs.
"My tower can send messages to relay stations across the territory instantaneously!" He gestured toward one of the glass towers dominating the skyline. "No more waiting weeks for courier delivery. A farmer in the western district can report crop yields and receive market prices within minutes. A merchant can coordinate with warehouses across the region in real time."
The crowd murmured appreciation. A merchant near me whispered to his companion, "Think of the trading advantages . . ."
I couldn't look away from the man on the platform.
Everything about him was movement. Energy. Life. He radiated dynamic energy like the sun gave heat. His smile was quick and sharp. His movements were efficient and precise but never restrained—he gestured broadly, turned fully, used his whole body when he spoke. When someone in the crowd asked a question I couldn't hear, he laughed. The sound was genuine and unrestrained, carrying that same electric undertone as his voice.
Something hot and liquid moved through my body. Not fever. Not infection. Something else entirely.
I'd never felt anything like it.
The cult taught that desire was weakness. That attraction was a distraction from spiritual purity. That the body's wants were chains binding us to the material world instead of elevating us toward the divine. Sister Vesla had explained during my initiation training that the feeling would pass if I focused onritual, on duty, on the greater purpose. That physical attraction was just animal impulse, beneath someone meant for higher service.
I'd believed her. Believed all of them. I'd successfully suppressed every flutter of interest, every curious glance, every moment when my body tried to remind me it was young and female and capable of wanting things.
But watching this man shape lightning with his bare hands, watching him move like electricity made flesh, I felt something wake up inside me that the cult thought they'd successfully killed.
Heat flooded my face despite my exhaustion. Heat that had nothing to do with the infection in my back or three days of fever-running. My heart was pounding and it wasn't just from fear or exhaustion. My breath came faster.
I thought he must be some kind of entertainer. Or a wealthy merchant demonstrating his company's innovations. The quality of his clothing spoke to money—that embroidery was expensive work, those boots were custom-made. But there was something about the way people watched him. The respect mixed with slight nervousness. The way even wealthy citizens stood a little straighter when he looked their direction.
He shaped the lightning into a miniature dragon that soared around the platform. The crowd gasped. The dragon dove and rolled, its electrical body crackling with contained power, before dispersing back into the sphere.
"Of course," he said, his voice carrying that wonderful undertone, "the technology is still in development. We've had some exciting malfunctions. Last week, a test message accidentally set three haystacks on fire. But progress requires a certain tolerance for creative destruction."
