“I trust you more than anyone,” he says, and the weight of those words, knowing what his trust costs him, nearly breaks me.
Then thunder crashes overhead, and I smile, as sharp and dangerous as the storm itself.
“Ready?” he asks.
“Ready.”
With that, his black flames engulf us, and I have just enough time to thinkplease let this workbefore the world fractures, spins backward through time, through that dark, endless vortex?—
My feet land on the ground.
We’re back.
There’s no time to think. No time to process. I just reach for that fire inside me and become one with the heat and orange light.
Then I’m bursting into existence on the Crown, flames licking my skin as I solidify just in time to see Thaddeus raise his dagger?—
And plunge it into Oliver’s chest.
JADE
No.No, no, no.
How’s he so fast? I fire traveled immediately. I didn’t hesitate. But Oliver’s eyes are already wide with shock, blood soaking his shirt in dark, spreading bursts.
A scream tears from deep in my chest at the same time as thunder booms overhead, so loud the Crown shakes beneath my feet.
Thaddeus’s head snaps up, his dagger arm pausing for a second. He looks... startled?
Good. At least something’s different this time.
But Oliver’s still dead. Still crumpled on the volcanic rock. Still gone.
My chest feels like it’s caving in. We were supposed to save him this time. We were supposed to be fast enough. Logan went back so many times—he pushed himself past exhaustion—and it still wasn’t enough.
The unfairness of it makes me want to tear the world apart.
But the only good thing about how it’s playing out this time around? Thaddeus hasn’t attacked me yet. Maybe it was theforce of my scream, or how the thunder answered my call, but I startled him. Maybe even scared him.
Which means I can still make the bastard who killed Oliver pay.
The Crown’s power surges up from my feet and through my entire body—that raw amplification that makes it the deadliest circle on the mountain—and I throw my hands up to the storm, palms facing the sky. The charge builds, wanting to descend, searching for a path.
My first instinct is to contain it like Logan taught me.
But no. That’s not what I need now. I need the opposite. I need tobecomethe storm.
So, I look up to the sky, reach for the energy overhead, pull it toward me, and let the glass sphere shatter.
The lightning strikes my upraised hands with the force of a god’s fist. And for one blazing moment, I’m not flesh and blood, but pure electrical current. Power beyond anything I’ve ever imagined courses through me—not my little sparks, but nature’s fury itself. It’s agony and ecstasy, like being torn apart and remade in the same instant.
Every nerve ending screams. Every cell lights up. Thunder rumbles—not from above, but from inside me, echoing through my bones. I’m the storm’s fury made flesh, and I’ve never felt more alive in my life.
When the lightning fills me completely, I return my focus to Thaddeus, thrust my hands forward, and release it through my palms.Every moment of fury pours out of me in one continuous stream of silver destruction, and the power feels endless, like I’m channeling the entire storm through my body.
My fingers curl as I push out more and more of it, my eyes narrowed as I glare at Thaddeus with revenge sharper than the blades he threw at me. The air screams. The ground cracksbeneath my feet. I think I’m screaming, too, but I can’t hear anything over the roar of pure, relentless power.
When I run empty, white spots dance in my vision, and there’s a strange ringing in my ears.
