Elara's POV
I woke up screaming.
Fire. My chest was on fire.
I clawed at the bond mark over my heart, certain my skin was melting. The glowing storm sigil blazed white-hot, pulsing like a dying star. Each throb sent waves of agony through my body.
But worse than the pain was what I felt through the bond.
Rage. Grief so deep it had no bottom. Loneliness that stretched across centuries like an endless void.
Zephyrion.
I stumbled out of the small room Maren had set up for me, gasping. The lighthouse was dark except for the bond mark's glow lighting my way. My legs shook as I climbed the spiral stairs toward the roof, following the pull of the bond.
The emotions bleeding through our connection were drowning me. How did he survive feeling like this? How did anyone survive eight hundred years of this?
The rooftop door hung open. Cold wind slapped my face as I stepped outside.
Zephyrion stood at the edge, perfectly still. His silver-white hair whipped around him like living lightning. Storm patterns on his skin pulsed with angry light. He stared at the sky—at the Tempest Veil barrier far above where he'd been imprisoned.
"Go back inside, Elara." His voice was flat. Empty.
"My chest is on fire." I pressed my hand over the mark. "What's happening?"
"The bond is adjusting. It'll pass."
"That's not all." I moved closer, even though every instinct screamed to run from the dangerous energy crackling around him. "I feel what you're feeling. All of it."
His shoulders tensed. "Then you should definitely go inside."
"No."
"I'm not safe right now."
"I don't care."
He spun to face me, and I gasped. His eyes blazed pure silver—no pupils, no humanity, just elemental fury. Lightning danced across his skin. The air around him hummed with barely contained power.
"You should care," he snarled. "I'm remembering things I've spent centuries trying to forget. I'm feeling things I'm not supposed to feel. And every second I'm near you, the bond gets stronger. Do you understand what that means?"
I swallowed hard. "Tell me."
"It means eventually I won't be able to leave. It means your emotions will become mine and mine yours until we can't tell where one ends and the other begins. It means—" His voice cracked. "It means I'll care about you, and caring about people is what destroyed me the first time."
The bond mark burned hotter. Through our connection, I felt his memories bleeding through—fractured images that didn't belong to me but felt real as my own heartbeat.
A young man with dark hair, laughing. I'll protect you, I promise.
A girl in simple clothes, weaving cloth. You don't have to be a prince for me to love you.
Chaos storms tearing the sky apart. Villages burning. Thousands dying.
The choice to volunteer. The transformation chamber. The agony of becoming something not quite human anymore.
And then... nothing. Just centuries of frozen isolation in the Tempest Veil, consciousness trapped in lightning with no way out, no way to die, just existing and existing and existing until existence itself became torture.
I staggered, overwhelmed by the weight of his memories. "You were human."
"A lifetime ago." Zephyrion turned back to the sky. "I was Prince Zephyrion of Aetheris. Twenty-nine years old. Engaged to a weaver's daughter my father hated because she had no magic, no title, nothing useful." His laugh was bitter. "I loved her anyway. Thought love was enough."
"What happened?"
"Chaos storms came. The kind that don't stop until they've consumed everything. The old Guardian-Caller bonds had been broken by then—your ancestors were already enslaving Guardians instead of partnering with them. We had no protection." He clenched his fists. "So I volunteered for the transformation. Became a weapon to hold back the apocalypse."
"To save her," I whispered.
"To save everyone. My kingdom. My people. Her." His voice dropped to barely a whisper. "They said the process would strip away my humanity. Make me unable to feel. They lied. I felt everything—every second of eight hundred years—but I couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't do anything but hold back the storms and watch the mortal realm through the Veil."
"Did she..." I couldn't finish the question.
"She waited ten years. Died an old woman while I stood frozen, unable to age, unable to touch her, unable to tell her I was still conscious in that prison." Lightning crackled around him. "That's what this bond will cost you, Elara. Even if the curse doesn't kill you, I'm eternal. You'll grow old and die, and I'll still be here, still feeling, still remembering."
The bond mark's burning pain had faded to a warm pulse. Without thinking, I sat down beside him at the roof's edge.
"I'm sorry you were alone," I said quietly.
He stared at me like I'd spoken a foreign language. "What?"
"I said I'm sorry. Nobody should be alone for eight hundred years. That's..." I couldn't even imagine it. "That's not surviving. That's torture."
Zephyrion's inhuman silver eyes studied my face. Through the bond, I felt his confusion—like kindness was something he'd forgotten existed.
"You should hate me," he said finally. "I destroyed your quiet life. Bound you to a curse. Made you a target."
"You also made me believe I'm not worthless." I touched the bond mark over my heart. The warmth spread through my chest, chasing away the earlier pain. "Nobody's ever done that before."
The dangerous energy around him settled slightly. His eyes faded back to their normal silver-blue. When he spoke again, his voice was rough. "You're not worthless, little spark. You never were. They just convinced you to believe their lies."
We sat in silence. The bond mark pulsed between us—steady, warm, connecting us in ways I didn't fully understand yet.
Then Zephyrion's entire body went rigid.
"What—" I started.
"Quiet." His hand shot out, gripping my wrist. Through the bond, I felt his sudden spike of fear. "Someone's coming. Someone powerful."
I looked at the stairs. "Maren?"
"No." He pulled me to my feet, his expression grim. "This presence... I know it. But that's impossible. He died three hundred years ago."
"Who?"
Before he could answer, a voice drifted up from below—smooth, amused, and dripping with dark magic.
"Hello, brother. Miss me?"
Zephyrion's face went white.
And I realized the one thing worse than one Storm Guardian.
Was two.