I grit my teeth, forcing my legs to keep moving even as my still-healing leg threatens to drag me down. The pedestal looms closer, the blade glowing faintly with an ethereal light that seems to reach out to me. With one final lunge, I reach the pedestal. My trembling hand closes around the blade's hilt, and the world stills, the blade instantly soothing me and the world around me.
For a moment, there’s nothing but silence. Kael’s shadow magic dissipates around me, the shadow attackers evaporate back into the walls, their forms no longer visible. Then, the hilt warms beneath my grip, a perfect fit, as though it were crafted for me and me alone.
Light erupts from the blade, a radiant burst that floods the chamber. I stagger back, the intensity of the light overwhelming, but I don’t let go. The warmth spreads from the blade to my arm, then to my chest, igniting something deep within me.
Pain and exhilaration crash over me as the Lightborne marking on my chest flares to life. Slowly, the glowing mark begins to fade, save for the Stars at the edge of my chest near my collarbones—they stay. Imprinted—glowing with a luminous brilliance.
As the light fades, I press trembling fingers against the glowing Stars spattered like luminous paint at the edge of my chest. The mark is permanent now, etched into my flesh as a promise—or perhaps a curse. My magic thrums beneath the surface of my skin, wild and unrelenting, fighting its bindings as if it's been imprisoned for too long.
A blaze of light shoots from my fingertips, spearing into the ground beneath me, and leaving a jagged hole in the chamber’s floor. The others leap back, a flash of panic in their eyes, as if I might hurt them. I feel a tingling heat rushing through my veins, and a frenzied urge to expel it from my body.
“Elyssara, breathe. Your magic is trying to unleash. Breathe. Command it into submission. You controlit, not the other way around.” Kael’s soothing tone is the most unsettling part. I can hear the concern lacing his words.
“I don’t know how!” I yell back, my voice breaking on the last word—I can feel myself losing control, my magic threatening to take me over. I feel as if I’m going to combust.
“I want you to find the place in your body where your magiclives—start with your chest, where your mark is,” he instructs, tone measured.
I close my eyes, turning my gaze inward.
“Yes, I feel it,” I whimper, placing my hands over my chest.
“Imagine your magic is contained within a small ball of light. Now search for any magic within your body that is not held within that ball. Find it, call it back. Command it to return to its rightful place,” his tone serious.
“Okay. Okay. I’m trying. It’s not listening!” I sob.
“Breathe. Do not ask it, Elyssara. Tell it. Command it.Make it.”
I breathe deeply into my belly, the way my mother taught me to do when I was having nightmares, and I attempt to leash my magic.
Return home.
Come back to me.
You are not needed.
I am safe.
Come home.
The heat in my skin begins to dissipate, and I can feel the tingling in my veins retreat, slowly but definitively, my magic is receding into its home inside my chest.
“Good girl. That’s it,” Kael encourages.
My cheeks warm at his approval, and a hot pulse pools in low in my centre.Get a fucking grip, Elyssara. Not the time for this!
I take one more deep breath and lift my eyes to glance around the group, everyone seeming to exhale properly for the first time since we flung out of The Gateway.
But it’s short-lived.
A roar fills my ears—not from within the chamber but from the world outside. The ground trembles beneath my feet, and the air grows heavy with an ominous charge. Thunder rumbles in the distance, deep and menacing, and a flicker of lightning illuminates the chamber for a brief moment.
“What the fuck was that?” Ronyn mutters, lowering his bow as he stares at the trembling walls.
Kael steps toward me, his gaze sharp and wary as he eyes the blade. “Elyssara, are you doing that?”
“I’m not doing anything, I swear it. I’m calm. My magic is contained,” I try to temper my voice, but I cannot keep the panic out of it.
But the storm outside grows louder, the thunder rolling closer, and a deep unease settles over me. From the small glimpse of sky I can see through the chamber entrance, the clouds above churn like a cauldron, black and furious, streaked with veins of lightning that tear through the heavens. It isn’t a natural storm; it feels... deliberate.
