Night fell heavy over Rynvale.
The forge's smoke had long since faded into the clouds, and the air hung thick with the scent of iron, rain, and waiting.
Eryndor Vale stood outside his master's workshop, staring at the storm blooming across the horizon. Lightning flickered like veins beneath the sky's skin, spreading from the distant valleys toward the town.
He had seen storms before.
But not like this.
This one was listening.
He could feel it — the faint hum in the soles of his feet, the subtle vibration in the air that matched the rhythm of his pulse.
Somewhere deep inside, something hummed back.
Earlier that day, the square had been filled with laughter, nervous whispers, and disappointment.
Eryndor remembered the look on the assessor's face — that half-second of surprise when the stone flickered blue, then died.
Unawakened, the man had said. But responsive.
Responsive to what, exactly?
He didn't know.
But he intended to find out.
The rain began as a whisper.
Cold drops pattered on the anvil outside the forge, turning soot to mud.
He reached for the metal rod he'd taken from the scrap pile — nothing more than a length of iron, scarred and imperfect. He had straightened it himself. The weight felt honest in his hand.
The thunder grumbled again, closer this time.
He walked beyond the town's last house, boots sinking into the red soil of the valley's edge. The wind pressed against him like a living thing. Above, clouds twisted into a black spiral, veins of blue light flashing within.
It should have frightened him.
It didn't.
He raised the rod high, its tip glinting faintly under the lightning.
Raindrops hissed as they struck the metal.
"If power is resonance", he thought, "then what is thunder?"
He closed his eyes and listened.
The world slowed.
The rain's rhythm became a heartbeat.
Each gust of wind a breath.
Each rumble of thunder a word he couldn't yet translate.
He focused on the space behind his heart — just as the assessor had said.
There it was again.
That tremor.
Soft, hesitant, but real.
Like the air was holding its breath inside him.
He opened his eyes.
The storm opened with him.
Light shattered the sky.
The lightning fell.
It didn't strike him — it found him.
For an instant, the world ceased to exist.
The wind, the rain, the valley — all vanished into white.
Only the scream of raw energy remained, surging through his arms and into his chest, searching for something to burn.
His knees hit the ground.
The rod in his hands glowed molten-blue.
The pain was unimaginable — but beneath it, there was clarity.
He could hear everything.
Every raindrop.
Every vibration of stone underfoot.
Every hum of power in the sky above.
He saw the path lightning took before it struck
the shape of its decision.—
And when the pain threatened to consume him, his Core — that sleeping fragment behind his heart — answered back.
Blue light burst from his chest.
The ground cracked.
The air screamed.
The lightning didn't stop.
It bent.
Coiling around him, circling his body like a serpent made of living light.
When the world came back, the storm had gone still.
Eryndor stood at the center of a scorched ring, breath slow, eyes glowing faintly with residual light. The iron rod in his hands had fused into a smooth, curved line — a blade, crude but sharp, forged by lightning itself.
He stared at it, chest heaving.
No fear.
No triumph.
Just wonder.
"So this is what thunder feels like."
A faint smile tugged at the edge of his mouth.
He swung the blade once. The air parted — clean, effortless. The sound it made was perfect.
The storm rumbled again, softer this time. Almost approving.
Eryndor looked up at the clouds and bowed his head slightly, as though to a teacher.
"Thank you."
By morning, the storm was gone.
But the people of Rynvale woke to a strange sight — a boy standing barefoot in a burned circle beyond the fields, holding a blade of blue steel that hummed like a living thing.
And for the first time in centuries, the air above the valleys carried the faint, electric whisper of a newborn Resonance.
A storm had spoken.
And a genius had listened.