Aelindra's POV
The knife came at my throat before I even heard footsteps.
I twisted sideways, letting the blade whistle past my ear instead of opening my jugular. My fist shot up, connecting with my attacker's jaw. He grunted and staggered back.
"That's my bread!" he snarled—a boy maybe sixteen, all sharp angles and desperate hunger.
"Not anymore." I held the stolen loaf behind my back with my good arm. My left arm had healed wrong over the past three months, leaving it weaker than before, but I'd learned to fight with just my right. "Walk away."
"You walk away! I saw it first!"
"Then you should've grabbed it faster."
He lunged again. I'd been expecting it. Ducked under his swing, drove my knee into his stomach, and shoved him hard into the alley wall. He slid down, gasping.
"Next time you pull a knife on someone," I said quietly, "make sure you're willing to use it."
I left him there and disappeared into the maze of the Lower Drifts before anyone else could try to take my breakfast.
Three months.
Three months since I'd fallen from the Apex Citadel. Three months since I'd been Aelindra Stormwrought, beloved daughter of a noble house.
That girl was dead.
The person I'd become was something else entirely.
I found my current hiding spot—an abandoned warehouse with half a roof and decent sightlines to spot danger coming. Home, if you could call it that. I'd stayed here for two weeks, which was practically forever in the Lower Drifts. Soon I'd have to move again. Staying in one place too long meant people noticed you, and being noticed meant trouble.
I tore into the bread like an animal, barely tasting it. Food was fuel now, nothing more. The elegant manners I'd been taught—using proper utensils, eating small bites, making polite conversation—had disappeared along with everything else from my old life.
My reflection in a broken mirror caught my eye. I barely recognized myself.
My hair, once carefully styled and glossy, now hung in tangled dark ropes. My face was thinner, sharper, with new scars crossing my cheek and forehead. My hands were calloused and dirty. My clothes—stolen from clotheslines and pieced together from scraps—hung loose on my frame.
I looked like exactly what I was: a survivor.
"Lyn!" A familiar voice called from outside.
I tensed, hand going to the rusty pipe I kept as a weapon. Then I relaxed. "Come in, Miri."
Mirielle slipped through the doorway, her own appearance transformed by three months in the Lower Drifts. She'd found me two months ago, having followed me down from the Apex despite the danger. My former lady's maid—my only real friend—had given up everything to stay with me.
"I brought news," she said, her expression grim. "You're not going to like it."
"I never do. Tell me anyway."
Miri pulled out a crumpled news-sheet—the cheap kind printed in the Lower Drifts, full of gossip from the upper levels. "It's official. The Storm Council formally announced it yesterday."
"Announced what?"
"Lady Seraphine Stormwrought's engagement to Lord Cassiel Nightwind."
The bread turned to ash in my mouth.
I'd known it was coming. Had suspected since the moment I saw them holding hands. But hearing it confirmed—hearing that my sister had taken my name, my fiancé, my entire life—made something cold and vicious twist in my chest.
"There's more," Miri said softly. "Cassiel got his Council seat. Youngest member in history. And Seraphine is being praised as the 'true daughter' of House Stormwrought, the one with honor and integrity."
I laughed. The sound was ugly, bitter.
"Of course she is. Because I'm the villain in their story. The thief who betrayed everyone's trust." I crumpled the news-sheet in my fist. "When's the wedding?"
"Three weeks. They're calling it the 'Union of Storm and Wind,' saying it'll bring prosperity to all of Stormhaven."
"How romantic." I threw the crumpled paper across the room. "They destroy me and get a fairytale ending."
"Lyn—"
"Don't." I held up my hand. "Don't tell me to let it go. Don't tell me revenge isn't worth it. That rage is all I have left, Miri. It's the only thing that keeps me alive when everything else tells me to just give up and die."
Miri was quiet for a moment. Then: "I wasn't going to say that. I was going to say we should crash the wedding."
I stared at her. "What?"
"You heard me." A fierce light entered her eyes—the same light that had made her follow me into exile. "They took everything from you. Lied about you. Threw you away like garbage. And now they're going to celebrate while you're down here starving and fighting for scraps? No. We should remind them exactly what they did."
A smile tugged at my lips—the first real smile in months. "Miri, we'd never make it past the guards. And even if we did, what would we do? I have no power anymore, no status. They'd just arrest us again."
"Maybe. Or maybe seeing you alive would ruin their perfect day. Maybe that's worth the risk."
Before I could respond, shouting erupted from the street outside.
We both froze.
"Storm Guard!" someone screamed. "Storm Guard in the Drifts! Everyone hide!"
My blood turned to ice. The Storm Guard rarely came down this far. When they did, it meant someone important wanted something—or someone—found.
"They're looking for you," Miri whispered, her face pale. "After three months, they're still looking."
"How? I've been careful. I haven't used magic, haven't done anything to draw attention—"
"Doesn't matter. We need to run. Now."
We grabbed our few possessions and slipped out the back way just as heavy boots echoed from the front entrance. Through the gaps in the walls, I saw them—six Storm Guards in full armor, led by Commander Thystra herself.
"Search every building in this sector," Thystra commanded. "The girl has to be here somewhere. High Councilor Moraveth wants her found."
Why? Why now, after three months of silence?
We ducked into the crowd on the street, pulling hoods up to hide our faces. Around us, Lower Drifts residents scattered like rats, knowing better than to get caught near Storm Guards.
"There!" one of the guards shouted, pointing directly at us.
"Run!" Miri grabbed my hand and we bolted.
The streets of the Lower Drifts became a blur—narrow alleys, rickety bridges, desperate crowds. We ran until my lungs burned, until my weak left arm ached from being jostled. Behind us, the guards gave chase, their armor clanking.
"Split up!" I gasped. "They're after me, not you!"
"Not a chance!" Miri yanked me down a side path.
We burst onto a bridge connecting two islands—a old rope bridge that swayed dangerously. Halfway across, I looked back.
Thystra stood at the bridge's entrance, alone. Her hand rested on her sword, but she didn't draw it.
"Keep running," she called. "I'll tell them I lost you."
I froze. "What?"
"You heard me. Go. Before I change my mind."
"Why would you help me?"
Thystra's expression was hard to read. "Because three months ago, I threw an innocent woman off the Citadel. I've had a long time to think about that. And I'm not throwing another innocent person to the Council's wolves. Now GO!"
We ran.
An hour later, we huddled in a new hiding place, catching our breath.
"That was too close," Miri panted. "They're actively hunting you again. Something changed."
She was right. But what?
As if answering my question, that strange presence in my chest—the sealed thing that had been slowly waking—suddenly pulsed with power.
I gasped, doubling over as energy flooded through me. Not painful, but intense. Overwhelming.
"Lyn? Lyn, what's wrong?"
The seals. The ones placed on me as a baby. They weren't just cracking anymore.
They were breaking.
And as they broke, I understood with sudden, terrible clarity why Moraveth wanted me found so desperately.
Because he could feel it. Through whatever magical connections the Council maintained over Stormhaven, he could feel my power awakening. Could sense that the thing they'd tried to suppress my entire life was finally breaking free.
That's why they'd framed me. That's why they'd wanted me dead.
Not because of what I'd done, but because of what I would become.
"Miri," I managed through gritted teeth. "Something's happening to me."
"What? What do you mean?"
Before I could answer, lightning crackled across my skin—blue and white and absolutely impossible for someone with no Storm Chosen status to produce.
But I wasn't trying to call it. It was just... there. Answering to me like it had been waiting.
The broken mirror on the wall reflected my face, and I froze.
My eyes were glowing. Faintly, but unmistakably—gold with cracks of silver running through them.
Just like in the old paintings of the Storm Kings.
The royal line that had ruled before the Council. The monarchs who'd been "destroyed" in the Storm Wars seventy years ago.
"Oh no," Miri breathed, staring at my eyes. "Oh no, Lyn. Do you know what this means?"
I did. I finally did.
The Stormwrought bloodline wasn't just noble. We were descendants of the Storm Kings. That's what had been sealed inside me. That's what made me dangerous.
I carried royal blood. The power that Moraveth and the Council had murdered to claim.
And now it was waking up.
"We need to leave the Lower Drifts," I said, my voice shaking. "Now. Tonight. Because when this fully awakens, everyone within miles is going to know exactly where I am."
"Where will we go?"
"I don't know. But anywhere is better than—"
Thunder cracked across the sky. Not normal thunder. This was different—loud enough to shake the buildings, powerful enough that everyone in the Lower Drifts stopped and looked up in fear.
And I felt it. Felt the storm responding to the power waking inside me.
Calling to me.
Telling me something was coming. Something big.
Miri grabbed my arm. "Lyn, the news-sheets this morning. There was something else I didn't mention because I thought it didn't matter."
"What?"
"The Crimson Storm. The deadliest storm in decades." She swallowed hard. "It's coming. In three days, it's going to hit Stormhaven."
Lightning flashed across the sky again, and this time I could swear it was reaching toward me.
The Crimson Storm. The seals breaking. My power awakening.
This wasn't coincidence.
This was destiny finally catching up.
And somewhere deep inside me, a voice that wasn't quite mine whispered:
Climb to the highest point. When the storm comes, stand in its heart. Let the lightning strike you, or die trying.
Because what's sealed inside you isn't just power.
It's a prince who's been waiting seventy years to wake up.