I straightened, fingers trembling, my fear wanted me to dig it back up, to hurl it into the brook, to rid myself of the thing that tied me to storms and whispers and ruins. But something else in me, something steadier, colder, kept me still.
The shard belonged to me now, or maybe I belonged to it.
I told myself tea would help, a small, ordinary thing. I filled the kettle, stoked the fire, and listened to the hiss. Flame was simple, it was obedient, storms were not.
When the water boiled, I caught my reflection in the surface, my own face broken into ripples of light. My eyes were too bright, the way stormglass glowed.
I blinked, and the shimmer vanished. But the taste of iron lingered in the back of my throat.
Sleep was a hollow word. Each time I closed my eyes, I felt the shard thrumming under the floorboard, the way a heart beats in the belly of the earth. Each time I stirred awake, I half expected to see black wings folded above the rafters. Once, I found a feather on the shutter, rain-slick, glossy as obsidian, I didn’t touch it.
By dawn, the storm had broken and rain dripped from the eaves in steady rhythms, like counting beads.
The oak stood sentinel, its boughs heavy, its roots drinking deep. I pressed my palm against the wrapped bandage and felt the heat beneath, a brand no cloth could smother.
The storm had marked me, the raven had delivered the proof, and the shard under my floor was waiting.
Waiting for what, I didn’t yet know.
Chapter 6
Storm-marked
CAELIRA
Imust have slept. At some point after dawn, in the half-light that bleeds between night and day, I let exhaustion drag me under. Not real sleep, no dreams, no rest, only something heavy and black.
When I opened my eyes, sunlight slanted across the rafters and the air smelled of rain-wet moss. My head ached, my throat was dry, and the first thing I saw was my hand.
The bandage was still there, wrapped tight from wrist to fingertip. My palm throbbed beneath it, dull and relentless, as though the storm had left a coal buried in my flesh.
I flexed my fingers and felt the heat pulse against the cloth, an echo of lightning’s burn.
For a heartbeat I told myself it would be gone, that the night was nothing more than fear and fatigue twisted into illusion, a nightmare.
I tried to convince myself that when I pulled the bandage free, my skin would be only skin. But when I looked across the cabin, my gaze snagged on the table, the mark was still there.
Silver white veins etched deep into the wood, branching like frozen lightning, pulsing faintly, no trick of light, no dream. Istared until my stomach turned, it had not faded, it hadn’t even dulled. It was as if it was waiting.
I glanced around the cabin with sharper eyes, searching for signs the storm had left behind. A bottle of ink had toppled from the shelf, bleeding a black crescent into the floorboards. My quill lay bent at an unnatural angle, its feather frayed as though chewed. One shutter bore long, thin scratches, like talons had raked it in the night.
Nothing had entered, yet the storm had touched everything.
I tried to shake it off the way I had with every oddity the storm had ever left in my path. Tidy thoughts, neat motions, small distractions. I boiled water, I set bread on a plate, I opened my ledger to tally grain shipments for the Verdant court. My hand cramped around the quill, but my eyes slid again and again to the scarred wood and my wrapped hand.
By mid-morning I gave up the pretense, I wrapped my palm tighter, drew my cloak close and walked into town.
The lands always lived in motion, vines reaching across walls, ivy pouring green shadows over the market stones and the foxfire lanterns never seemed to go out, no matter the hour. The market should have been noise and comfort, but today it feltsharpened. The moment I stepped onto the cobblestones, heads turned.
Not toward me, but away, as though averting their eyes might undo my presence.
I forced my feet toward the bread stall. The baker’s wife was there as always, flour on her sleeves, mouth set in its usual quiet line. She lifted her eyes when I reached for a loaf and stilled when she saw the cloth wound tight around my hand.
Her face drained. “I’ve no bread left,” she said flatly, though the rack behind her sagged with fresh rounds still steaming. I opened my mouth, but the words tangled. “I can pay—” She shook her head once, firm. “Not for you. You bring trouble with you.”
The world titled, I let my coins fall back into my palm and turned away before the tremor in my fingers betrayed me. Behind me, the stalls shutters clattered down as though to bar out lightning.
I passed the smithy next, the blacksmiths hammer, mid strike, rang off key as his eyes caught mine. He muttered a prayer under his breath, setting the iron aside though it still glowed hot.
