The air in the kitchen grew charged, tasting of copper and static. The light from the single bulb overhead wavered. The scorching heat in the muscle intensified, a drumming, insistent tremor that travelled down my arm, making my fingertips tingle with a terrifyingenergy.
It was a drumbeat I’d ignored my whole life, now growing to a deafening roar.
Eamon rose slowly from his chair, his gaze fixed on my shoulder.
“It’s waking up.”
The words hungin the space between us, heavy and absolute.
The sensation was no longer an ache. It was a presence. A current of raw, untamed energy thundered down my arm, flooding every vein with a terrifying, electric vibration.
My heart hammered against my ribs, each beat a strike of lightning. The air crackled, thick with the scent of a coming storm. It was a caged thing inside me, rattling its bars.
“Why?” The word scraped my throat. My own voice sounded distant. “Why hide it? Why let me believe I was… this.” I gestured around the too-small kitchen, at the life that was now a lie. “Why lock it away?”
Eamon’s face was a portrait of grim resignation. The fear was still there, but it was an old, familiar friend.
“Because our kind isn’t gone, Selene.” He spoke in a low, urgent tone that cut through the roaring in my ears. “Liora and I… we were not the only Aetherkind. And not all of us who remain are like us.”
A cold dread coiled its way around the burgeoning power inside me, feeding the frantic energy beneath my skin.
“There are others,” he continued, his voice dropping to a whisper that held the weight of millennia. “Ancient. Twisted. Their magic is a corruption, a hollow thing that only consumes. They don’t create; they take. They crave what we have. What you have.”
My mind raced, connecting threads I never knew existed. The dead zones across the city. The soulless husks of Calysteri victims. The empty-eyed horror on Talia Merrin’s face. A hunger for power.
“The Reaping,” I breathed. “The murders… it’s them.”
He gave a slow, pained nod. “They’ve been hunting for traces ofour kind for centuries. They search for a power they can’t forge themselves.” He looked away, his gaze lost in a memory that chilled the room. “Liora knew what they were capable of. She felt them stirring long before anyone else. She was terrified they would find you. That someone… specific… would sense you.”
Someone. The word dangled, a hook baited with a truth I wasn’t ready for.
The burning in my brand was no longer just a warning. It was an invitation. A sharp spike of heat radiated through my chest, forcing me to grip the edge of the table.
“So you’re telling me I’m in danger,” I said, the statement flat, stupidly obvious. “Now. Because this… this thing inside me is getting louder.”
“You have always been in danger.” His voice was bleak. “Liora’s seal was the only thing keeping you invisible. It was our only defence.”
“Then we need a new defence.” I shoved the panic down, forcing my voice to remain steady even as the air pressure in the room began to drop. I looked at him—really looked at him—seeing not just my father, but the entity he claimed to be. “You said you’re Aetherkind. Centuries old. That means you have some sort of power. Real power. If the seal is broken, reforge it. Wards, barriers—do whatever you have to do to lock this house down.”
The look he gave me was hollow. “I can’t.”
A cold static prickled across my skin. “Why not?”
“Because my magic is not hers.” He held up his good hand. The air above his palm distorted—a massive warp in gravity that made my ears pop.
He closed his fist, extinguishing the force. “When the bond severed, it fractured my strength,” he whispered. “But even whole, I am not a catalyst. I manipulate gravity. I can crush, and I can break, but I cannot build a cage to hold the fire inside you. Only she could do that.”
He looked at me, his eyes bleak. “I have spent twenty yearsstarving my magic, using just enough to keep the house wards alive. But if the seal breaks, I have no way to forge another.”
His words landed like stones. There was no tactical backup. No fortified safe house. The only shield was a dying woman’s sacrifice, a spell woven from love and grief. A spell my own emotions were now tearing apart.
My breath hitched. The fear, the rage, the betrayal—it all rushed at once, a deluge of feeling that fed the fire in my shoulder. I couldn’t hold it back anymore. The strain inside me hit a critical mass.
The mark ignited. It was a white-hot agony that made me gasp. The air around us warped, heavy with the scent of ozone. The lightbulb overhead buzzed violently, then popped, showering the table in sparks and plunging the kitchen into the pre-dawn gloom.
My pulse was a frantic storm, lightning arcing through my blood.
In the half-light, I saw raw terror on Eamon’s face. “Selene… calm yourself.” His voice was a desperate plea. “You’re slipping.”
