The trees blur together after three days of walking. I've lost track of the deer paths that once seemed so clear, the ones Lior, Mira, and I used to follow during summer expeditions. Back then, we'd always return home before sunset.

  Now, there is no returning.

  I rub my wrist where Mira's bracelet sits, the leather worn soft from years of our shared childhood. The braided pattern, once just decoration, now feels like the only thing keeping me from unravelling completely. My fingertips trace the frayed edges of my cloak, another nervous habit that's grown worse since leaving Ashgrove.

  "You're being dramatic," I mutter to the empty forest, imagining Lior's teasing voice. But Lior isn't here. Lior is dead because of me—because of the storm that chose me.

  The thought sends a familiar surge through my chest, and I clench my fists, forcing deep breaths. The storm responds immediately, pulsing against my ribs like a second heartbeat, eager to be unleashed—not now, not again.

  I trudge forward, my boots falling apart with each step. The left one has a hole where my smallest toe peeks through, rubbed raw from days of endless walking. Pain is constant now—in my feet, in my hollow stomach, in the wound on my shoulder that still pulses with strange light when night falls.

  But physical pain is almost welcome. It drowns out grief, if only for moments.

  Night falls quickly in the wilderness. I've made camp in the hollow of a massive oak tree, but "camp" is generous—just my thin cloak and a pitiful attempt at a fire. My hands won't stop shaking, and the storm inside me seems to mock my efforts, crackling with energy that could ignite a forest but refuses to light my kindling.

  "Just a little," I whisper, focusing on my fingertips. "Just enough for warmth."

  The storm surges suddenly, and lightning arcs between my fingers, scorching the ground but missing the sticks entirely. I jerk back, heart hammering against my ribs.

  "Stupid," I hiss, fighting back tears. "Stupid, stupid, stupid."

  I curl into myself, tucking my knees to my chest. Would Lior know what to do? Would Mira? They always knew how to calm me when the pressure built beneath my skin. Now I have only myself, and I am proving to be poor company.

  Sleep comes in fragments, broken by dreams of Lior's face as lightning struck him, of Mira's eyes as I walked away, of my mother setting two bowls at the table out of habit, then quietly removing one.

  By dawn, I'm shivering and drenched in sweat. The wound on my shoulder throbs with unnatural heat, tendrils of light pulsing beneath my skin like slow lightning. When I close my eyes, I see faces—my mother's, creased with worry; Mira's, soft with unshed tears; Lior's, forever frozen in that last moment of realisation before the lightning took him.

  "I didn't mean to," I tell Lior's ghost, who stands just beyond the treeline, sunlight catching in his golden hair as it always did. "I never wanted to hurt you."

  His ghost smiles sadly and opens his mouth to speak, but no sound comes. Instead, a flutter of sparks drifts from his lips, and he fades into the morning mist.

  I reach for him, forgetting for a moment that he isn't real. My fingers close on empty air, and the loss hits me fresh, as raw as the day it happened.

  The storm stirs, responding to my grief with uncomfortable eagerness. It doesn't understand loss—only power and purpose.

  By the fifth day, hunger had become a constant companion. My last apple—one I'd stolen from our orchard—is brown and soft, but I eat it slowly, savouring each bite as if it were fresh from the tree. The core joins others I've discarded along my path, breadcrumbs leading nowhere.

  "You'd tell me to go back," I say to Lior's ghost, who walks beside me in my mind. "You'd say I'm being foolish."

  The storm agrees, pressing against my lungs with unusual fervour. It's been changing since I left Ashgrove—less chaotic, more... purposeful. As if it understands where we're going, even if I don't.

  That thought terrifies me more than the wilderness.

  "I don't know what you want," I tell it, feeling the familiar spark of static dance across my skin. "I don't know what I'm becoming."

  The storm doesn't answer, but it pushes me forward with uncomfortable urgency.

  I stumble across a stream by midday, the water cold and clear. As I kneel to drink, I catch my reflection—a stranger stares back. My storm-grey eyes have darkened, shifting like thunderclouds. Shadows hang beneath them, and my dark hair hangs in tangled knots around a face grown gaunt with hunger and fear.

  "Is this what power looks like?" I ask my reflection. "Is this what you wanted?"

  The storm pulses in response, sending ripples across the water's surface, distorting my image until it's unrecognisable.

  The nights are the worst. Alone in the darkness, I can't stop the memories from flooding back—of Lior's laugh, of Mira's quiet strength, of my mother's hands braiding my hair before the Harvest Festival. Before everything changed.

  Tonight, I've managed a small fire that casts eerie shadows across the clearing. I stare into the flames, wondering if this is how Lior felt in his final moments—consumed by light, unable to escape.

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  "I'm sorry," I whisper, tears finally breaking free. "I'm so sorry I couldn't control it."

  The storm stirs restlessly, as if affronted by my apology. It never seems to feel guilty, only anticipation.

  I catch myself talking aloud again—to Lior, to Mira, even to my mother. The isolation is eating at me faster than hunger. I wonder if this is how I'll end—mad and alone in the wilderness, consumed by the very power I fled to contain.

  The thought brings fresh tears, hot against my chilled cheeks. I rub them away roughly, focusing instead on the bracelet at my wrist—my promise to Mira.

  "Find out who you are," she'd said. "Don't die before you understand."

  Easy for her to say. She wasn't the one carrying destruction beneath her skin.

  In the flickering firelight, I imagine I see Mira sitting across from me, her light green eyes flecked with gold, her soft gold-brown hair escaping its braid as it always did. She bites her lip the way she does when she's thinking hard, and I almost reach out to tuck the loose strand behind her ear.

  "You're not a monster," my imagined Mira says, her voice so clear I glance around, startled to find myself still alone.

  "How do you know?" I ask the empty air. "How can you be sure?"

  The fire pops in response, sending sparks skyward. I watch them rise and fade, just like the life I left behind.

  My sixth day in the wilderness brings fever. The wound on my shoulder has turned the skin around it translucent, veins of light spreading outward like lightning frozen mid-strike. Each pulse of the storm sends fresh pain through my body, and my vision blurs and doubles.

  The forest floor rises to meet me as my legs give out. I curl on my side, leaves and dirt pressing against my cheek. The sky above spins wildly, clouds morphing into faces I know—and some I don't. Strange creatures with glass skin and molten eyes peer down at me, their gazes hungry and curious.

  "Leave me alone," I croak, but my voice is lost in the rushing of blood in my ears.

  Lior kneels beside me, his golden hair glowing like a halo. He reaches for my face, and I feel his touch like sunlight on my skin.

  "You have to get up," he says, his voice echoing strangely. "It's coming."

  "What's coming?" I ask, my lips cracked and dry.

  But Lior is gone, replaced by my mother, her brown eyes soft with worry as she brushes hair from my forehead.

  "You're burning up," she says, her hand cool against my skin. "You need to find shelter."

  I try to tell her I'm fine, that I just need to rest, but she fades too, leaving me alone with the storm and the fever.

  With tremendous effort, I push myself upright. The world tilts dangerously, but I force myself to stand, swaying like a sapling in high wind. One foot in front of the other. Don't stop. Don't fall.

  The storm presses me forward, more insistent than ever.

  On the seventh day, the mist rises thick from the forest floor, turning the world into shadow and suggestion. I've been walking for hours, or maybe minutes—time has lost meaning when every tree looks the same and the sun is hidden behind perpetual clouds.

  That's when I feel it—the same crawling sensation I experienced on the ridge. The storm inside me responds immediately, flooding my veins with heat and pressure. I stop, suddenly alert.

  Through the mist, a figure emerges—but not human. It moves with disjointed grace, limbs too long and bent at unnatural angles. Its face is smooth and featureless, a blank canvas that somehow still seems to study me with terrible awareness.

  My heart pounds so hard I fear it might break through my chest. The creature tilts its head, a movement so alien it sends fresh terror through me.

  "Stay back," I warn, my voice thin in the heavy air.

  The storm surges upward, filling my throat with the taste of lightning. My fingertips glow, and I raise my hands defensively, ready to unleash whatever power comes.

  But the creature doesn't attack. Instead, it goes utterly still, its blank face somehow conveying shock. Then, to my astonishment, it seems to... recognise me. Not me—Kaela—but something within me. The storm. My power.

  The creature's posture shifts subtly, its blank face tilting as if in curiosity or... is that satisfaction? A ripple passes through its smooth skin, almost like pleasure. It makes a sound—not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh—that raises the hair on my arms and sends a chill down my spine.

  "What do you want?" I demand, my voice stronger now, fueled by fear and the storm's growing agitation.

  The creature doesn't respond in words. Instead, it extends one twisted limb toward me, not threateningly, but almost... reverently. As if offering something. A greeting? Recognition?

  The storm inside me roars in response, surging through my veins with such force that light begins to spill from my skin. The wound on my shoulder blazes, and I cry out in pain and shock.

  The creature withdraws its limb quickly, and something changes in its demeanour—a new wariness, perhaps, or calculation. It takes one step back, then another. But there's no fear in its retreat—only a strange, unsettling satisfaction, as if it's confirmed something important.

  It backs away into the mist, its blank face somehow managing to convey smugness, leaving me trembling and confused. The last thing I see is a ripple through its body, like quiet laughter.

  When it's gone, my legs finally give out. I collapse to the forest floor, my entire body shaking uncontrollably. The storm within me continues to rage, seemingly excited by the encounter rather than exhausted. Static electricity makes my hair stand on end, and small arcs of lightning dance between my fingers without my willing them to appear.

  "What was that?" I gasp, wrapping my arms around myself as if I could contain the storm by force. "What did it want?"

  Lior's ghost appears beside me, crouching down to my level. Unlike my other hallucinations, this one seems sharper, more present.

  "It recognised you," he says, his voice oddly clear. "Or rather, what's inside you."

  "The storm?" I whisper.

  Lior nods, his golden hair catching non-existent sunlight. "It knows what you are."

  "And what am I?" I ask, desperate for an answer, even from a ghost.

  But Lior only smiles sadly and fades away, leaving me alone with the storm and the terrible suspicion that whatever that creature was, it was pleased by what it found—and that somewhere, others would soon know I exist.

  I curl forward until my forehead touches the damp earth, trying to ground the electricity still coursing through me. The storm continues to pulse with renewed purpose. It is guiding me somewhere—has been since I left Ashgrove—and whatever waits at the end of this journey knows exactly what I am.

  I'm not sure I want to find out.

  But as I lie there, shaking and spent, one thought keeps circling: that creature wasn't afraid of me. It was pleased. Like a hunter that has finally spotted its quarry.

  Or worse—like someone who has found a long-lost weapon.