Chapter 2
Pausing in his squat at the palace boundary, Rain scanned the shadows, senses stretched wide for any hint of movement. He reached out with his power, sweeping the area for nearby signatures. Nothing. No guards. No servants. No curious eyes.
He slipped over the boundary and dropped lightly onto the street, settling into an easy jog.
The evening air greeted him with a cool, crystal breeze that brushed against his skin, a welcome contrast to the suffocating tension of the palace.
There was a buoyancy to the night, something clean, something hopeful, that he desperately needed after last night’s dinner.
Arguments with his father were inevitable, but lately they had sharpened into something vicious, leaving Rain raw as he moved through the dark.
A ten-foot brick wall rose ahead. Rain sprinted toward it, drawing curious glances from anyone who might have been watching.
To them, he would look reckless—deranged, even.
But at the last second, he launched upward, feet striking the wall in three precise steps before his fingers caught the edge.
He vaulted over and landed silently on the other side.
He didn’t pause. His feet hit the ground and he was already moving, weaving through the construction yard.
This was his favourite part of the journey.
The half-built structures became a playground of steel beams, scaffolding and skeletal frames.
He danced across them with effortless grace, climbing higher and higher until he reached the rooftops.
Up here, he was untouchable.
He leapt from roof to roof, soaring through the air, the city unfolding beneath him. In these moments, he felt free—free from duty, free from expectation, free from the crushing weight of being who he was. Here, he could be nothing but body and instinct, strength and momentum.
It took remarkable skill to move like this.
For most people, one misstep would mean catastrophe.
But Rain was not most people. His royal bloodline set him apart, but it was the aetherial genetics that made him exceptional.
Or… that was the tradition, at least. Over the centuries, the aetherial gifts had faded, replaced by lesser versions.
Only recently had the newest generation begun showing signs of renewed power—an unsettling development for the kingdoms.
Rumours whispered of ancient prophecies foretelling the downfall of the kingdoms. Rain had only ever heard fragments.
His parents kept him and his sister Snow sheltered, their education curated, their questions deflected.
Over the years he had pieced together what little he could from overheard conversations and palace gossip.
He suspected the prophecies involved him and his twin sister.
It made sense. Twin births were rare among aetherials, over a thousand years between kind of rare.
Rarer still were aetherials who each possessed multiple abilities.
Historical accounts from the era of the Great Divide mentioned such anomalies only in passing.
Since then, it had become virtually unheard of.
Rain and Snow were an exception. A threat and a political weapon.
Their father revealed only what was useful, concealing the full extent of their abilities to forge alliances and instil caution in their enemies.
Rain had been born with what others might call a gift, but to him, it had always been a curse.
His empathic abilities set him apart from the Blue and Green bloodlines of his parents.
Empathic power wasn’t impossible among them, but it was rare enough that Rain’s sensitivity drew attention long before it evolved.
His powers were the first sign that he and Snow would not be limited to a single ability.
As puberty approached, Rain’s empathy fractured into three distinct forms. From birth, he had been a reader, able to sense the emotions of those around him with startling clarity.
It made him intensely emotional, dependent on reassurance and overwhelmed by feelings that weren’t his own.
His mother had called him difficult. Weak. Exhausting.
His father had hoped for a son whose powers would befit the throne.
Rain’s emotional volatility was a disappointment he couldn’t hide.
By age two, Rain had been shunned from court life under the guise of protection.
In truth, his father simply couldn’t bear the outbursts that came with Rain’s overwhelmed state.
But when puberty hit, everything changed.
His empathic abilities sharpened, expanded, mutated. He no longer sensed emotions—he embodied them. Every nearby living being became a storm he had to weather. His young mind couldn’t separate his feelings from the feelings of others. Confusion and turmoil became his constant companions.
And yet… this was only the beginning.
Before Rain had even begun to understand what it meant to be a receiver—someone who sensed and absorbed the emotions of others—his gift evolved again.
A new ability surfaced, sharp and uncontrollable: projection.
Suddenly, Rain wasn’t just feeling the emotions around him; he was broadcasting his own.
At first, it was accidental—his adolescent angst bleeding into the people near him.
But soon, it became something far more complex.
Every emotion he absorbed merged with his own and spilled outward, creating a volatile storm that engulfed anyone within reach.
Receiving. Embodying. Projecting.
A trifecta of empathic abilities that no child would have been able to nor should have been expected to manage.
The consequences were inevitable. His teenage years dissolved into isolation, the palace forced to contain the fallout of taboo incidents that no one dared speak of.
Rain had spent years hidden away, not out of protection, but because no one knew what else to do with him. No one dared to linger in his presence.
Eventually—even reluctantly—his father intervened.
He sought out aetherials capable of helping Rain control his abilities, and found Elder Isarion Vaelwyn of Eirwynia, the White Kingdom renowned for its empathic lineage.
With Isarion’s guidance, and the support of a carefully assembled team, Rain finally began to make progress.
Gaining control, Understanding and Healing.
Slowly, painfully, he clawed his way back from the chaos of his own mind.
As Rain neared his twentieth birthday, something shifted.
A new ability emerged; one that was physical this time.
Energy manipulation. At first, Rain had seen it as a blessing, a reward from the Gods for surviving the worst of himself.
But the truth revealed itself quickly: this power was a double-edged sword.
His father regarded it with a mixture of pride and horror, seeing in it the potential for unimaginable destruction.
Rain saw only another burden.
Still, the ability had its uses. During parkour, it acted as a safety net—an invisible cushion if he misjudged a leap, a pull of energy to draw him toward a ledge.
But Rain refused to rely on it. Using his powers in competition felt like cheating.
He wanted to win through skill, not supernatural advantage.
That mindset bled into every part of his life.
His training became relentless. Precision. Stealth. Tolerance. Strength. He honed his body into a weapon and his mind into a fortress. But beneath the discipline lay something darker: self-punishment. A distraction from the turmoil that rose whenever he was still for too long.
Snow worried about this aspect of him. She always had. But she also saw how far he’d come. She understood that training gave him purpose and distraction even if he sometimes pushed himself too close to the edge.
His twin was everything he wasn’t—open-hearted, warm, beloved.
She was the light to his darkness. And she was the only person in the world who could be near him without consequence.
One of her abilities made her immune to his projection, allowing her to stop him when he spiralled out of control.
Her rare gift to nullify empathic abilities through touch had saved him more times than he could count.
It was the only reason he’d been allowed – or forced before the public as a child.
Their father had insisted no one outside the palace could know of Rain’s lack of control.
When they discovered Snow’s touch nullified his power, the twins were forced to attend royal events with their hands bound together in a gloved contraption.
The gossip had been vicious whispers about inappropriate closeness, as if siblings shouldn’t hold hands for comfort.
Snow’s other abilities had manifested at puberty: Barrier Creation, a force field capable of protecting anyone within its dome, and weather manipulation—ice, snow, blizzards summoned from thin air.
True to her name. Her physical ability had been present since birth, tiny flakes drifting from her fingers before she could even walk.
Her empathic gifts, however, had remained hidden until they became Rain’s salvation.
The twins had known about their connection long before anyone believed them. A young Rain had tried to explain that Snow made him feel safe around others, but adults dismissed him as anxious and codependent.
As the border came into view, Rain slowed, shifting from speed to stealth.
The slate-grey tiles beneath him were slick with evening dew.
He moved low, each step deliberate as he approached the edge of Nilantra, the capital of the Blue Kingdom.
One final leap would take him beyond the boundary—into enemy territory.
He positioned himself carefully, preparing to flip onto the guttering and drop three floors to the aerth below.
A prickling sensation crawled across his skin, pausing him in his tracks.
Someone was nearby.