Chapter 30
Maeve
TONIGHT, I’M ALONE ON THE spire. It’s just me and the wind and the storm crackling beneath my skin, where it lives within my veins.
The air smells of deep autumn: wet fallen leaves, the warm scent of woodsmoke, the crispness of a not-so-far-off winter.
Overhead, the moon is bright, unimpeded by clouds.
It bathes the campus in cool silver-white light and casts shadows as I step to the center of the tower, barefoot, grounding myself the way Severin has been teaching me.
But Severin isn’t here with me. Because I need this moment to think, without being influenced by him—and the desire my magic feels toward him.
Drawing a deep breath, I close my eyes, focusing on my senses: the cold breeze on my cheeks, the frigid stone under my bare feet, the whisper of air through the trees sprinkled across the campus courtyard.
And when I’ve fully grounded myself, am fully in control, I lift my hands and call my storm.
As usual, it answers immediately, like there’s no boundary between my magic’s thoughts and my own.
Lightning crackles through my veins, ready and eager to be released. I gather the energy at my fingertips, pulling it from my body and from the air, threading it together like strands of a silver tapestry.
This used to be difficult for me. But with practice, I’ve learned how to shape my magic.
Now I just have to figure out how to contain it.
I guide the threads of energy into a sphere, working it between my palms, coaxing more and more life into it, and it begins to swirl.
At first, my magic behaves as I intend for it to. The bright white globe of magic crackles in my hold, rotating in tight arcs of contained electricity.
Around me, the air shifts, a breeze brushing across my cheeks and neck, and it reminds me of Severin—of his hands on my waist, his chest pressed to mine, his breath dancing across the curve of my throat.
Immediately, my magic surges.
The sphere pulses, fingers of lightning lashing and snapping outward. The wind around the tower intensifies, catching my hair and sending it swirling behind me.
For a heartbeat, I try to restrain it, suppress it, force it to be still, like I usually do. It starts to fight back, trying to escape my hold.
My muscles tighten, and my shoulders begin to lock. I grit my teeth.
Then I remember Severin’s teachings.
Perhaps you don’t need to control. Perhaps you only need to guide.
My attempts to retain control over my energy sphere have never worked. So maybe it’s time to stop fearing the unknown and try something new.
I widen my stance, pressing my bare feet more firmly into the cold stone.
Then, instead of trying to compress my lightning, I let it travel.
It uses me as its conduit, racing through my arms, down my spine, into my hips and legs, finding grounding in my feet where they’re pressed to the stone.
It threads through my body in the same way lightning threads through the sky: untamed.
“Storm energy doesn’t want to be static,” I whisper to myself. “It wants to move.”
The lightning crackling in my energy sphere stops flaring outward and starts to circulate instead, rotating in smooth, controlled spirals. The globe glows brighter, a silver-white beacon in the darkening night.
I’m no longer fighting it, no longer trying to force it to stay intact.
I’m letting it move.
I think of Severin again, but this time, instead of my magic surging out of control, it pulses like a heartbeat, warm and steady and somehow at peace. Unlike every time before, it doesn’t destabilize.
The energy current threads through me, then back into the sphere, and I feel deeply connected to it, like it and I are one. My shoulders relax, and my breathing slows and deepens. The energy I hold between my palms no longer fights and writhes, because I’m no longer trying to grip it.
Now, I’m just directing it, using my body as its conduit, allowing it to circle through me instead of trying to force it into submission.
I should’ve known all along: Lightning never submits.
A small smile curls across my mouth. I stand there beneath the moonlight, with energy humming between my hands, and I start to realize something.
My struggle with my energy magic is similar to the struggle I’ve had with Severin. Out of fear, I’ve wanted to grip, control, restrain. Just like my magic, I have this worry that Severin is going to escape from me, and it makes me want to hold on to him tighter.
But nothing likes to be caged.
And if I want to truly experience something, whether it’s my lightning or the feelings I have for Severin, I need to be able to stop gripping so tight and just . . . let go.
For the first time, my energy sphere doesn’t explode into sparks of white light. Instead, I’m the one to let it go softly, to allow it to unravel into the cold night air in soft glowing threads of light.
And when it’s gone and I’m alone on the dark spire, body trembling from the amount of power I just channeled, I feel something else unravel from inside me.
The fear that’s clung to me since I first realized the depth of my feelings for Severin starts to subside, and I flick my fingers a few times, as if I can banish that energy from my body and release it into the night.
Drawing a heavy breath, I tip my face up to the sky. The moon and stars shine down on me, glowing brilliant silver against the backdrop of the night. I exhale my breath in a stream of gray.
And as I look up at the sky, I know exactly what I’m going to do.