Celeste's POV
FINALLY.
The voice slams into my mind like a physical blow. I stumble backward, gasping, my hand still pressed against the crystal seal.
"Who—who are you?" I choke out.
Lightning explodes around the crystal structure, illuminating the massive prison in blinding white light. And inside, I see him clearly now—a figure made entirely of electricity and rage, trapped in an endless loop of torture.
Who am I? The voice is thunder and agony mixed together. I am the one they tried to erase. The one they scattered across storms for a THOUSAND YEARS.
The figure slams against the inside of the crystal, making the entire structure shake. More lightning erupts, and I'm thrown to the ground.
"Stop!" I scream. "You're going to kill us both!"
Good! the voice roars. I've wanted to die for centuries, but they wouldn't even give me that mercy. They made sure I stayed conscious. Aware. Feeling every second of this torture.
I struggle to my feet, my broken ribs screaming in protest. The seals on the crystal are glowing brighter now, reacting to my touch. To my blood.
"What are you?" I demand.
The lightning-figure presses against the crystal, and for just a moment, I see features—a face twisted in endless pain. Eyes that were once human but have seen too much suffering.
I am Kieran Stormborne, the voice says, quieter now but no less intense. Last Prince of the Lightning Throne. And you, little Storm-Caller, are the first person to touch these seals in a thousand years.
My blood runs cold. "You're... you're real? The stories about a survivor are true?"
Survivor? He laughs, and it sounds like breaking glass. I didn't survive. I'm not alive. I'm not dead. I'm something in between—a soul shattered into a thousand pieces and sealed into lightning itself. Every fragment conscious. Every fragment in agony.
I stare at the crystal prison, horror washing over me. This is what the Radiant Court did? This is the mercy they showed to the Lightning-Blessed?
"They didn't just kill your people," I whisper. "They tortured you."
Now you understand. Kieran's lightning-form flickers. They scattered my soul across multiple storms. Made sure I could never reform, never rest, never escape. For a thousand years, I've been screaming with no one to hear me.
"Until now."
Until now. His voice becomes urgent. The seal is weakening. Your blood—it has Lightning-Blessed ancestry in it. Distant, but enough. You're breaking the binding magic just by touching it.
I look at my hand pressed against the crystal. Where my cut palm touches the seal, the glowing symbols are flickering and dying.
"If I break the seal," I ask slowly, "what happens to you?"
I don't know. For the first time, his voice holds something other than rage—it holds fear. Maybe I reform. Maybe I scatter completely and finally cease to exist. Maybe I go insane and destroy everything in reach.
"That's not exactly reassuring."
I've been tortured for a MILLENNIUM! he snarls. I'm barely holding onto sanity as it is. But anything—ANYTHING—is better than one more second in these storms.
I should walk away. This is clearly dangerous. The Radiant Court sealed him here for a reason.
But then I remember Aldric's face as he betrayed me. Maris's lies. My parents disowning me. The feeling of my magic being ripped from my soul.
The Radiant Court doesn't deserve my trust or my mercy.
"I'll break the seal," I decide.
Why? Kieran sounds suspicious. Why would you free something you know nothing about?
"Because they hurt you the same way they hurt me." I press my hand harder against the crystal, feeling more seals crack beneath my palm. "Because I want them to suffer. Because I'm already dead, and if I'm going down, I'm taking their precious secrets with me."
You're insane.
"Probably." I drag my bleeding hand across the crystal, breaking more seals. "But you don't get to judge me, storm prince. We're both victims here."
The seals start shattering faster now. Lightning pours from the cracks, screaming into the sky. The entire Stormrift responds—every storm in the Deadlands converging on this spot, drawn by the breaking prison.
"How do I finish it?" I shout over the roar of wind and thunder.
The center seal, Kieran directs. The one written in royal blood. That's the anchor. Break that, and everything collapses.
I look where he's pointing. At the very heart of the crystal structure is a seal larger than all the others, glowing blood-red. Ancient words are carved into it in a language I don't understand.
I climb onto the crystal, ignoring the pain in my body. Broken ribs, twisted ankle, bleeding hands—none of it matters anymore. I'm so close.
The center seal pulses beneath my fingers, hot and alive. It burns when I touch it.
"What does the seal say?" I ask.
'Let this abomination suffer for eternity. Let him feel every second of his people's extinction. Let him never know peace, never know death, never know mercy.' Kieran's voice is raw. My own words, carved with my own blood while they tortured me. They made me write my own prison sentence.
Rage floods through me. Not just for myself anymore, but for him. For everyone the Radiant Court destroyed.
I slam my fist down on the center seal.
It cracks.
"No!" Kieran suddenly screams. "Wait! Something's wrong! The seal is—"
Too late.
The seal shatters completely.
Lightning explodes upward in a column so massive it splits the sky in half. The crystal prison disintegrates. And Kieran's soul—scattered across a thousand storms for a thousand years—begins to pull itself together for the first time since his torture began.
But something's wrong.
His fragments are reforming, but slowly. Too slowly. Like pieces of a puzzle that don't quite fit anymore. He screams—a sound of pure agony that makes my ears bleed.
I can't hold together! he cries desperately. The seal kept me scattered too long. My soul is too broken. I'm collapsing back into—
His forming body starts to dissolve. The lightning that was becoming human starts fragmenting again.
"No!" I grab at him instinctively, even though he's made of electricity. "I didn't free you just to watch you die!"
I'm not dying, he gasps. I'm scattering. Back into the storms. Forever. And this time, there won't even be a seal to hold my pieces in one place. I'll fragment across the entire world, lost forever, still conscious, still in agony—
His lightning-form is barely holding together now. Terror fills his voice—the kind of terror that comes from facing something worse than death.
I can't go back to that. Please. I CAN'T—
In desperation, his fragmenting soul reaches for the only anchor nearby—the only living thing with Lightning-Blessed blood.
Me.
His lightning slams into my chest.
Not possessing me. Not controlling me.
Anchoring to the one thing that can hold him together—my heartbeat itself.
I scream as his soul crashes into mine, settling into the rhythm of my heart. Not separate from me. Not beside me.
Inside me.
His consciousness, his emotions, his entire shattered existence suddenly occupying the same space as my life force.
Then silence.
I collapse to my knees, hand over my chest, feeling something impossible.
I'm not alone in my body anymore.
Someone else is there, wound into my heartbeat like a second soul sharing the same space.
In my mind, shocked and disbelieving: What... what just happened?
It's Kieran. His voice in my head. His presence in my heart.
What did you DO? he demands, his mental voice panicked. This shouldn't be possible. I'm inside you. Inside your heartbeat.
I can feel him exploring our connection with growing horror. And I'm starting to feel him too—emotions bleeding into mine. A thousand years of pain and rage and desperate, overwhelming relief.
"Get out," I whisper frantically. "Get OUT of me!"
I can't! His voice is harsh with fear. My soul is too fragmented to exist on its own anymore. It can only anchor to a living heartbeat. And yours is the only one available.
"Then find another heartbeat!"
If I leave you, I scatter back into the storms forever! He's almost pleading now. Don't you understand? Your heartbeat is the only thing keeping me together. If your heart stops, I die. If I try to separate, you die. We're trapped. Together.
The storms around us start collapsing inward without Kieran's soul to stabilize them. Lightning strikes everywhere, the ground splitting open.
"We need to run!" I gasp.
Then run! Kieran shouts in my mind. And let me help or we both die here!
My body suddenly moves with speed I didn't command. Lightning reflexes. Storm speed.
His power, flowing through my heartbeat.
We run together—one body, two souls, neither of us understanding what we've just become.
Behind us, the Stormrift explodes.
And ahead of us lies a future neither of us asked for, bound together in the most intimate prison imaginable.
My heartbeat is his lifeline.
His soul is my burden.
And neither of us knows if we'll survive each other.