“You’d give up being Torin? Just—cease to exist—on a maybe?”
“I’d give up everything to save you. Saving thousands of others in the process just makes it easier.” His hand cups my face, thumb tracing my cheekbone. “But I won’t do it without your consent. Won’t take that choice from you. So tell me: do we try? Or do we die here knowing we at least got to love each other first?”
The question hangs between us. Final. Irreversible.
I think about my brother, Kael. About my parents who trained me to be safe, controlled, perfect. About Marina, the Deep Runner child we met in the Citadel who deserves a future without war. About every person downstream who has no idea their lives are measured in heartbeats.
I think about Torin. About the life we could have if we survive this. About children we might have. About growing old beside the water while he teaches me to swim properly and I teach him to fly.
All the futures we’ll never have if I say yes.
All the futures no one will have if I say no.
“Do it,” I whisper. “Merge us. Save them. And if we don’t come back—at least we’ll go knowing what we were willing to sacrifice for something bigger than ourselves.”
His love floods the bond. Pride. Sorrow. Acceptance.
“I love you, Zara Stormwright.”
“I love you, Torin Blackwater.”
And then we let go.
Openingevery barrier is like dying.
I feel my sense of self start to dissolve. The edges that define where I end and Torin begins blur, soften, disappear. Memories that are his flood my consciousness—Mira laughing, the Deep before the isolation, training exercises, the first time he killed, the moment he saw me falling from the sky.
My memories flow into him—my parents’ disappointment, Kael’s protectiveness, diplomatic negotiations, the fear of never being good enough, the moment I saw him in the water and felt the bond ignite.
But it’s not just memories. It’s sensation. I feel the wounds on his back as if they’re my own. Feel his exhaustion in my bones. Feel his hydrokinesis like a new limb I’ve always had but never noticed.
He feels my lightning potential as untapped energy. Feels my wings as extensions of himself. Feels my claustrophobia as a visceral terror he’s never experienced but now understands completely.
We’re not Zara and Torin anymore. We’re something else. Someone else.
The entity that we’ve become doesn’t have a name. Doesn’t need one. It simply is. Awareness without separation. Consciousness without boundaries. Love so complete that self and other become meaningless concepts.
And power. Gods, the power.
Not from combining our individual magic. From the fusion itself. Every point of connection generates energy. Every sharedmemory creates resonance. Every emotion amplified creates force.
We are electricity and current, wind and wave, sky meeting sea not in opposition but in synthesis. We are the storm at its most fundamental level—the point where elements cease being separate things and become phenomenon.
The entity rises from the water. We rise. No distinction between flying and swimming. Movement is instinct. Purpose is clear.
The dam is failing. Caspian is destroying it. Thousands will die.
We will stop this.
The entity reaches toward the dam—not with hands but with will. Lightning flows from what was Zara’s reserves, amplified by what was Torin’s understanding of water. Hydrokinesis draws from what was Torin’s training, refined by what was Zara’s strategic mind.
But it’s not combination anymore. It’s unification. Single magic from single source. Storm force given conscious direction.
We don’t attack Caspian. Don’t counter his destruction with more destruction. Instead, we reinforce. Rebuild. Restore.
Lightning arcs from the entity into the dam’s cracks. Not explosive energy but precise, controlled, surgical. Each bolt acts as a welder, fusing stone that’s already failed. Sealing fractures. Mending what’s broken.
Simultaneously, hydrokinetic pressure flows through the structure. Not shattering force like Caspian’s using, but supportive strength. Water filling gaps. Creating internal structure. Holding pieces that want to fall.
