The heat of summer had seeped into every corner of Shadow City. It wasn't the suffocating warmth that humans complained about, but a crisp intensity that hummed with energy, as though the very air was charged with waiting storms.
That was how I felt too - charged, restless, brimming with something wild that begged to be set free.
For days, Seraphina had been chasing the whisper of lightning in her veins, chasing the truth of an element that had eluded her until now. Fire, earth, water, wind, shadow - she had already mastered the five of them. But lightning was different. It was impatient, fickle, and cruel. It didn't yield easily, and it demanded more than obedience... it demanded surrender.
And tonight, at last, she surrendered.
The courtyard beyond the eastern wing of the Seelie Court castle crackled with stormlight as she stood at its heart. Sweat rolled down her spine, her fingers trembling as her body strained to hold together the raw force surging within her.
