The path down from the sanctum was treacherous in daylightâat dusk, it became a test of faith. Each step required careful placement on loose stone and weathered root, the trail narrow enough that Riven's sword hilt scraped against the cliff face more than once. But despite the danger, I found myself moving with unexpected confidence, my feet finding purchase on rocks I could barely see.
The sensation was intoxicating. After weeks of rigid control, of holding my storm so tightly contained it felt like holding my breath underwater, this subtle release was like finally being allowed to breathe freely. The compass pulled steadily in my palm, its brass surface warm against my skinânortheast, always northeast, like a lodestone calling to ironâbut it was more than that. It was home calling to me, or perhaps some deeper truth I'd never known I was missing.
Flynn took point, his lean form ghosting between the scraggly pines that clung to the mountainside. Behind me, Riven's presence was a constant, watchful weightâI could feel his attention like a hand on my shoulder, ready to steady or restrain as needed. The boundary threads that connected us hummed with quiet awareness, a strange comfort I was still learning to trust. They made me feel less alone, less like a danger walking among innocents.
An hour into our descent, the trail levelled onto a broader shelf of stone. Here, ancient pines grew thick enough to block most of the remaining light, their branches interwoven overhead like a cathedral ceiling. The air tasted of pine resin and coming snow, and for a moment, breathing it in, I felt something I hadn't experienced since before the Harvest Festivalâa sense of belonging somewhere wild and beautiful.
Without conscious thought, I let my awareness expand just a whisper beyond my skin. Thereâa shift in the wind pattern around that cluster of boulders. And there, where the trees grew sparse, the way the cold settled told me of an opening, perhaps a ravine cutting down toward the valley floor. The mountain's secrets unfolded before me like pages in a book I'd always known how to read.
The storm within me stirred, not in warning but in something that felt almost like joy. It was like the way it had always responded in Ashgrove when I'd sensed rain coming or felt the first whispers of a weather change, but deeper, now, more intentional, more deliberate. As if my storm was finally able to do what it had always been meant to do, to read the world around us and keep us safe.
There, something whispered in the back of my mindânot words, but understanding that felt like coming home. East-northeast. Three hours' walk. Water runs deep underground.
I found myself adjusting our course slightly, angling toward a gap between two enormous pine trunks that I somehow knew would open onto an easier path. My feet moved with the same unconscious certainty I'd felt as a child in Ashgrove's orchards, when I'd known which apple trees were ready for picking and where the wind would carry the scent of coming storms. For the first time in months, I felt like myself againânot the storm-bearer, not the dangerous weapon everyone watched so carefully, but just Kaela, reading the sky and trusting the wind to guide her.
The awareness expanded outward like ripples on still water, and I revelled in it. I could sense the mountain's breathingâthe way cold air pooled in the hollows and warm currents rose from the stone faces that had caught the day's sun. Higher up, where the snow lay thick, I felt the weight of winter pressing down. And below... below, the forest slept peacefully, nothing but deer and small creatures moving through the undergrowth.
The relief was overwhelming. No wrongness. No creeping cold that marked the corrupted. Just... peace. Just a mountain being a mountain, and me finally able to read its moods without fear.
I paused beside a lightning-struck pine, my hand rising to brush against its scarred bark. The storm within me hummed with interest, recognising the mark of its own kind. Through that touch, I felt the echo of the strikeânot recent, but not ancient either. Perhaps two years passed. The tree had survived, grown stronger around the wound.
Like you, whispered that inner voice, and I knew it wasn't my own thought. The recognition sent warmth flooding through my chest. I wasn't the only thing that had been marked by lightning and lived. I wasn't the only thing that had been wounded and found a way to heal.
"Kaela."
I jerked, spinning to find Flynn watching me with curious green eyes. His hand rested on his dagger, but his posture was relaxed, alert, not alarmed. Still, the interruption shattered the peaceful moment like glass, and reality came crashing back.
"What are you doing?"
The question hit me like cold water. I blinked, suddenly aware of where I was standing, of how my hand had found the scarred tree without conscious thought. Of how I'd been reading the mountain like a familiar book, following patterns and currents I hadn't even realised I was sensing. The euphoria curdled in my stomach, replaced by a familiar spike of anxiety.
"I..." I pulled my hand back from the bark, the connection breaking with an almost physical snap. The expanded awareness collapsed inward, leaving me feeling strangely blind and bereft. It was like suddenly losing a sense I hadn't known I possessed.
Inside me, my storm pressed against the boundaries I'd learned to maintain, like a caged bird beating its wings against the bars. The sensation was suffocatingâall that vast awareness compressed into the space behind my ribs, every instinct to reach out and taste the wind suddenly cut short. I'd been doing it without thinking, letting my storm flow just beneath the surface, reading the mountain's moods and the whispers in the air currents.
Now, pulled back into myself, I felt deaf and half-blind. The loss was so acute it made my chest ache.
"I was..." I struggled to find words for something I'd barely understood myself. "I was listening to the mountain. My storm was... reading it. Showing me the easiest paths, the safest routes." I looked between Flynn and Riven, whose expression had grown sharp with suspicion, and my heart sank. "I didn't mean to. It just happened."
The admission tasted like defeat. Once again, I'd failed to maintain control. Once again, I'd put everyone at risk without even realising it.
Riven's jaw tightened. "You've been letting your storm loose this entire time?"
The accusation stung like a slap. "Not loose," I protested, though even as I said it, I realised how thin the distinction was. "It wasnât even far enough toâ"
"Far enough for every Hunter within leagues to sense." Riven's voice was clipped, controlled, but I could hear the edge of anger beneath. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"
Right.
I didnât even realise that.
The words struck me more than I could take. Inside, my storm recoiled, hurt and confused. It had been trying to help, trying to keep us safe, and now I was being scolded for letting it do what felt as natural as breathing. The shame was crushingâonce again, my inability to control my power had put the people I cared about in danger.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, wrapping my arms around myself. The words felt inadequate, hollow. "I didn't realise. It felt so... natural. Like when I used to predict the weather at home."
But even as I apologised, part of me rebelled against the guilt. For those precious hours, I'd felt whole for the first time since the sanctum. I'd felt like my storm and I were working together instead of at odds, like we were finally beginning to understand each other. And now I was expected to feel ashamed of that harmony, to see it as another failure rather than the first real progress I'd made.
Flynn moved closer, his expression gentler than Riven's but still concerned. "How long have you been doing this?"
I thought back over our descent, remembering the moments when my feet had found sure purchase on loose stone, when I'd steered us away from unstable ground or toward easier passages. Each memory now felt tainted with the knowledge of my carelessness. "Since we left the sanctum, I think. Maybe longer." The admission tasted bitter. "I thought I was just being careful."
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Riven muttered something under his breath that sounded like a curse. He scanned the trees around us, hand moving to his sword hilt. "We need to move. Now. If there are Hunters in these mountainsâ"
"There aren't." The words left my mouth before I could stop them, driven by a certainty I couldn't deny even in the face of their suspicion.
Both men turned to stare at me. Riven's eyes were hard as flint. "How could you possibly know that?"
I hesitated, feeling the storm's certainty like a warm current in my chest. Even contained as it was now, I could sense the truth of itâno wrongness in the air, no creeping cold that marked the corrupted. The knowledge sat in my bones, as undeniable as my own heartbeat. "Because my storm would know. It would feel them, the same way it felt that wrongness below us earlier. But there's nothing. Just... mountain. Just winter and stone and sleeping trees."
"You can't be certainâ"
"Yes, I can." The conviction in my voice surprised me, cutting through Riven's scepticism. "The same way I was certain about the path, about the safe routes. My storm isn't just reading the weather, Riven. It's reading everything. The whole mountain feels... clean."
Clean. The word settled something anxious in my chest. For months, I'd lived with the constant fear that corruption might be lurking around every corner, that Hunters might appear at any moment. But here, now, I knew with absolute certainty that we were safe. Not just from immediate danger, but from the deeper wrongness that had haunted my nightmares since that first shadow creature had found me on the ridge above Ashgrove.
A long silence stretched between us, broken only by the whisper of wind through pine needles. Finally, Flynn spoke up, his voice carefully neutral. "If what she's saying is true, then we might have an advantage we didn't expect."
Riven's expression didn't soften. "Or she's wrong, and we're walking into a trap because she's been sending up signal flares with every step."
The criticism stung, but I forced myself to consider it. Had I been careless? The awareness had felt so natural, so right, that I hadn't questioned it. But Riven was rightâI'd been trained to keep my storm contained, and I'd let it slip free without even noticing. The weight of that failure pressed down on me like a stone.
We resumed walking, but now every step felt leaden. My storm pressed against my control like a living thing, desperate to stretch out again, to taste the air and read the mountain's secrets. The forced containment made my chest tight, my breathing shallow. It was like trying to hold my breath while runningâpossible for a while, but increasingly uncomfortable.
Worse than the physical discomfort was the loss of that sense of rightness, of harmony. For a few precious hours, my storm and I had worked together seamlessly, and I'd felt more like myself than I had since Lior's death. Now, with my power locked away again, I felt diminished. Cut off from something essential. The mountain around us became just rock and tree again, beautiful but mute, offering none of the subtle guidance that had made our descent so sure.
After an hour of stumbling over roots I should have sensed, of missing the subtle signs that would have warned us of loose stone or hidden ice, I finally stopped. I couldn't breathe properly. Every muscle in my body was tense with the effort of containment, and my head pounded with the strain.
"I can't do this," I said, the words coming out more strangled than I'd intended.
Both men halted, turning back to me. Flynn's expression was concerned, but Riven's remained suspicious. The sight of that distrustâfrom someone whose life was literally tied to mineâmade the crushing weight in my chest even worse.
"Can't do what?" Flynn asked, his voice gentle.
I pressed a hand to my chest, where my storm churned restlessly against its constraints. The pressure was becoming unbearable, like trying to contain an ocean in a teacup. "This. Keeping it so tightly contained. It's like... like trying to hold back the tide with my bare hands." I looked up at them, knowing how desperate I must sound but unable to help myself. "Could I... could I let just a little out? Just enough to guide us safely? I swear I'll keep it small, controlled. Just enough to read the path ahead."
The plea tasted like defeat, but I was past caring about pride. I needed to breathe. I needed to feel like myself again, even if only for a few moments.
"Absolutely not." Riven's response was immediate and final, driving a spike of despair through my chest.
"Please." The word came out as barely more than a whisper, stripped of everything but raw need. "I've been doing it unconsciously this whole time, and no Hunters came. Maybe... maybe a controlled release is actually safer than forcing it down so hard it might break free on its own."
The possibility terrified me. What if the constant pressure became too much? What if my storm finally broke free of my control entirely, the way it had during the Harvest Festival? I couldn't live through another Lior. I couldn't be responsible for destroying everything I touched.
I saw something flicker in Flynn's eyesâunderstanding, perhaps, or sympathy. But Riven remained unmoved, and his doubt felt like a physical weight pressing down on me.
"We've come this far without incident," Flynn said slowly. "And if she's been doing it unconsciously anyway..."
"That's exactly the problem," Riven snapped. "She has no control over it."
"But I do now." I stepped closer, trying to project confidence I wasn't entirely sure I felt. The words came out fierce, desperate. "Now that I know what I was doing, I can be deliberate about it. Careful. I can set limits."
I had to believe that was true. The alternativeâthat I was truly as dangerous and unpredictable as Riven seemed to thinkâwas unbearable.
The internal pressure of my contained storm was becoming unbearable, like a headache behind my ribs. I could feel it testing the boundaries, looking for any crack, any momentary lapse in my attention. How long before it broke free on its own, without any guidance from me at all? How long before I lost control entirely and proved Riven right about the danger I posed?
Riven studied my face for a long moment, and I wondered what he saw there. Desperation? The tight lines of pain around my eyes? Or just another storm-bearer making excuses for why she needed to let her power loose?
Finally, his shoulders sagged slightly. "A whisper," he said, and his voice carried the weight of defeat. "The absolute minimum. And if I sense even a hint that it's growing beyond that, we stop immediately."
Relief flooded through me so powerfully that my knees nearly buckled. The sudden loosening of that crushing pressure in my chest left me dizzy, grateful beyond words. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet," Riven muttered. "This could get us all killed."
His words should have sobered me, but I was too focused on the blessed relief of finally being able to breathe. I closed my eyes and let out the smallest tendril of awareness, like opening a window just a crack in a stuffy room.
Immediately, the pressure in my chest eased. My storm uncoiled slightly, stretching out cautious fingers to taste the air, to feel the pulse of the mountain around us. The sensation was like coming back to life after holding still for too longâmuscles loosening, breath flowing freely, the world suddenly bright and comprehensible again.
The difference was immediate and overwhelming. I could sense the firm ground ahead, the patch of ice concealed beneath a drift of leaves, the unstable ledge that would have given way under Riven's weight. More than that, I could feel the vast emptiness where Hunters should have been if they were tracking usâa clean absence that was almost reassuring in its completeness.
For the first time in hours, I felt like myself again. Not the careful, contained version of myself that everyone seemed to prefer, but the real meâthe one who could read the wind and dance with storms.
"Better?" Flynn asked, watching my face.
I nodded, not trusting my voice. The relief of even this small freedom was overwhelming, bringing tears to my eyes that I quickly blinked away. This was what I'd been missing, what I'd been denying myself out of fear and guilt. This connection, this harmony between my storm and the world around us.
We continued down the mountain, and now our progress was sure and steady. I guided us around obstacles before they became problems, found the easiest paths through the tangle of deadfall and stone. Each successful navigation filled me with quiet satisfactionânot the wild euphoria of earlier, but something steadier and more sustainable. This was what it felt like to work with my storm instead of against it.
But I kept tight control over the connection, constantly monitoring its strength, pulling back whenever I felt it wanting to expand beyond the narrow limits I'd set. It was exhausting workâlike walking a tightrope while juggling. The constant vigilance required to maintain that precise balance left me drained, but it was better than the suffocating containment of before.
Several times I had to stop and rein in my storm when I realised it had begun to reach too far, reading too much, tasting too deeply of the mountain's secrets. Each time, the sudden constriction left me gasping, but I forced myself to maintain the discipline. I couldn't afford to prove Riven right about my lack of control.
"How are you doing?" Flynn asked during one such episode, when I'd gone pale and had to lean against a tree for support.
"Fine," I lied, though sweat beaded on my forehead despite the cold. "It's just... harder than I expected. Like trying to whisper when you want to shout."
The analogy was more accurate than I'd intended. Every instinct screamed at me to let my storm flow freely, to embrace the full extent of what it could show me. Fighting against that natural inclination took every ounce of willpower I possessed, leaving me feeling hollowed out and shaky.
Riven, who'd been maintaining a constant scan of our surroundings, finally seemed to relax slightly. "No signs of pursuit," he admitted grudgingly. "Whatever you're doing, it's not drawing attention."
The small praise warmed me more than it should have. After hours of feeling like a barely tolerated liability, even that grudging acknowledgement felt like a victory. I straightened, gathering my strength for the next stretch of trail.