Not like something rising from me—but like something rushing back, crowding into places it no longer quite fit.
It knew my shape. I didn’t know its.
The power was real, but it didn’t obey. It stuttered, lashed in every direction. Bolts struck the mast. Others ricocheted into the sea. The same pulse that hurled sirens back also sent ropes and barrels skidding across the deck, nearly taking crew members down with them.
I couldn’t direct it. I could only unleash it. It answered fear and fury, not control.
I raised a hand, willing the light to form again. It sparked against my palm and sputtered out. Another wave came when I screamed—not deliberate. Reactive.
I was a conduit, not a wielder.
And whatever this was, it wasn’t the whole of it. It felt like a door blown open.
It was enough.
As the last of the sirens fell shrieking into the sea—smoking, shattered—I dropped to my knees, the power ripping out of me in one final, uncontrolled burst.
The magic didn’t fade.
Itrebounded.
Heat flashed behind my eyes, hot and blinding. My vision tunneled, the edges of the world darkening as my heartbeat slammed too fast, too hard, like it was trying to outrun my ribs. A wet warmth spilled from my nose, dripping onto the deck before I could stop it.
Blood.
My stomach lurched violently. I barely had time to twist aside before I retched, bile and saltwater splattering the planks. The smell of it turned my stomach again, my body folding in on itself as if it were trying to purge the power along with everything else.
This wasn’t exhaustion.
This was my bodyrejectingwhat I’d forced through it.
Every nerve screamed. My hands shook so badly I couldn’t curl my fingers, muscles locking and unlocking in painful spasms. The world tilted, pitching me sideways until my palms slapped the deck, slick with blood that wasn’t all mine.
It had never felt like this before.
My magic had always been distant—a flicker, a whisper I chased and never quite caught. This had been a flood. Fear and adrenaline had torn something open inside me, and the power had surged through a body that wasn’t built to hold it.
The energy burned out, leaving something colder behind. Not fear. Not relief.
The silence came first.
Not fear. Not relief—distance.
I felt it even before I saw it. The space the crew gave me as I tried to breathe through the nausea, through the shaking. They weren’t staring in awe. They were measuring. Calculating how dangerous I might be if it happened again. I could feel it—the weight of an unseen presence pressing against my skin, heavy and oppressive, the way air changes before a storm. Familiar in a way I couldn’t place. A whisper at the edge of memory, something that had watched me before.
Power doesn’t always make people feel safe.
Alaric stood at the edge of the quarterdeck, blood dark on his blade, smoke clinging to his skin. For once, his face held no sarcasm, no calculation, no infuriating grin.
It was stripped bare.
He had seen everything.
The look he gave me held awe… and something I couldn’t read.
Someone whispered, “What the hell was that?”
Heat still lingered on my skin. The scent of scorched salt and ozone clung to every breath. My fingertips tingled; lightning hadn’t fully left me.
