Thorne’s expression hardened, but something flickered in his eyes, not arrogance this time. Resignation. “You do.”
Vaelen’s gaze flicked between them, thoughtful. “They’ll need to train often. Separately and together. The tether between Nyxariel and Vornokh is far from stable.”
Commander Dareth nodded. “Then we start tomorrow at dawn.”
As the Commander turned away, Thaelyn felt Thorne’s eyes on her. The air between them vibrated faintly, not magic this time, but tension.
She met his stare, jaw set. “You won’t break me again.”
His reply came low, almost a growl. “Then stop making me try.”
The thunder rolled across the horizon, faint but unending, as if the sky itself listened to the storm they’d just survived.
Beneath that sound, Thaelyn could almost swear she heard Nyxariel’s voice whisper through the bond, “Balance is pain, Stormborn. Learn it. Before the fire learns you.”
Chapter
Eighteen
Night settled over the Asgar Training Academy. The Scorchfield had fallen silent, but the storm inside Thaelyn hadn’t. Every heartbeat carried a faint shimmer of magic, an ache that refused to fade.
She should have been asleep. Instead, her feet carried her through shadowed corridors, down into the belly of the mountain where few cadets were ever allowed. The passage narrowed, lined with runes that pulsed like faint stars.
A voice drifted ahead. “You came.”
Vaelen Solen waited by a half-open iron door, torchlight gilding the edges of his profile. The archivist looked older here; the weight of centuries pressed into his shoulders.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Thaelyn said. Her voice was hoarse. “Every time I close my eyes, I still feel it, the storm, the heat, like it’s waiting.”
“It is,” Vaelen replied. “Aether never sleeps. It only hums until you answer.”
He gestured for her to go inside.
The hidden archives were nothing like the academy’s upper libraries. The air was warm, metallic, humming with quiet life. Books were stacked alongside crystal vessels that glowed faintly from within. Threads of energy drifted in the air like dust motes caught in candlelight.
“This is where Asgar keeps what it fears,” Vaelensaid, guiding her between the shelves. “Histories struck from the record. Spells that should have been forgotten. Names that still remember being spoken.”
Thaelyn’s eyes traced the sigils carved into the marble floor, spirals of light and shadow, echoing the ones that had burned across her skin.
“What do you know about Aether?” he asked.
“That it’s forbidden,” she said. “That it destroys.”
He smiled faintly. “Half-truths are safer than the whole one.” He placed a crystal orb into her palms. Inside, threads of violet light coiled and uncoiled like breath. “Aether is the current between all things, life and death, creation and decay. It heals because it remembers. It kills because it refuses to forget.”
The orb pulsed, answering her heartbeat.
“Aether is the living pulse beneath all elements. It is not fire, air, water, or earth. It is the source from which those elements draw. It reacts to emotion, intention, truth, and the heart of the wielder.”
“What can it do? I don’t understand. Why do they fear that I have it?”
“Aether can heal with breathtaking speed or tear something apart at the atomic level.
The wielder’s emotional state determines the outcome. Aether manifests differently based on lineage. Stormborn Aether feels like lightning under the skin. Flameborn Aether carries heat and volatile power. Aether can strengthen or weaken living energy. It can revive, bind, or sever magical bonds, even dragon bonds. Aether can supercharge existing elemental magic. Fire becomes hotter. Air becomes sharper. Earth becomes denser. Water becomes more fluid and more dangerous. Aether can create powerful barriers that resist elemental and dark magic alike. Aether strengthens dragon bonds. It can awaken dormant traits in dragons or amplify the connection between fated pairs. Aether responds to feeling more than force. If the wielder is calm, the magic is serene and steady. If the wielder is afraid or furious, it becomes unpredictable. Aether can repair things ordinary healing cannot reach, such as burns, broken bones, internal wounds, and magic scarring.”
She swallowed. “Then how do I control it?”
“You don’t.”
