Outside, the storm answered.
Wind slammed into the walls, thunder rolled close, sudden and furious. Lightning flared bright enough to white the corridor through the windows.
Lightning sparked over my hands, biting into his cloak, the sharp crack of it too close to flesh to be mistaken for warning.
His breath broke in a harsh gasp. The smell of scorched fabric hit the air.
I drove him higher against the wall, forearm locked, weight pinning him there.
“You will understand this,” I said my voice deathly calm.
Lightning arced again, a thin, violent lash snapping between my fingers and the stone beside his head. He froze, eyes wide now.
“You will not take her,” I continued. “You do not approach her. You do not so much as think about touching her.”
I tightened my grip.
“If anyone tries,” I said, voice low and unyielding, “I will kill every…last…one of you.”
The lightning along my hands hissed.
“And I will not hide what is left,” I went on. “I will leave you where the world can see you, so no one mistakes this for a legend or exaggeration.”
My jaw clenched.
“You will carry this back,” I said through gritted teeth. “Word for word. Breath for breath.”
I released him then.
He dropped hard, the breath driven out of him as his shoulder struck first, then his back. He lay there for a beat, stunned, coughing once as he dragged air back into his lungs.
I took a single, measured step back, lightning bleeding from my fingers.
The messenger didn’t look at me again. He scrambled to his feet, dignity abandoned, one hand clutching his throat as he staggered back.
The witness was already moving, fear finally louder than protocol. The messenger followed a heartbeat later. Boots pounded against stone as they fled down the corridor, cloaks snapping behind them.
The storm outside was still raging, but inside the world had gone quiet in the way it does after something irreversible.
Caelira stepped up behind, her fingers wrapping around my arm to steady me, to calm me. The storm eased with her touch. Just a fraction, but enough.
I turned towards her.
She was right there, close enough that I could feel her breath. Her eyes locked on mine with an intensity that wasn’t fear, just clarity.
“They came for me,” she said quietly.
“Yes.”
Her hand tightened.
She didn’t speak right away. When she did, her voice was quiet. Certain.
“You’d already decided,” she said. “If it came down to it.”
I didn’t move, didn’t deny it.
Her gaze slipped away then, just for a moment, as if she were following the thought all the way to its end. Like she was seeing the cost clearly for the first time.
