Merlin didn't move yet. He watched Nathan, the raw strain in his expression, the flicker of imbalance where one element threatened to overwhelm the others.
Then, quietly, he stepped forward.
"Merlin," Maerin warned, "wait until—"
But he'd already lifted his hand.
Lightning snapped once across the air, blinding white, not wild, not scattered, but focused. It coiled around him like a living current, threaded with wind that spiraled upward, soft enough to stir the dust on the ground but strong enough to shape it.
The water followed, not liquid but vapor, condensing and evaporating with each pulse of energy.
And finally, space. The faint, near-invisible distortion that bent light just enough to make his outline blur. The air warped around him in silence.
All four affinities pulsed together.
Not battling. Not merging. Just breathing.
The dome groaned faintly under the shift in pressure. The sigils across the floor brightened until they were almost white.
