Caelen left the herb garden, the air still crackling with the promise he had woven into it. The image of Evelyn's blush, the husky eagerness in her voice, was a potent fuel for the power thrumming within him.
It was a different kind of conquest than planning for war or unraveling cosmic mysteries—simpler, more immediate, and deeply satisfying.
He spent the next few hours in the archives, but his focus was fractured. The intricate theories of lightning magic, the dense histories of demonic hierarchies—they all felt like dry tinder compared to the living flame of anticipation burning in his chest.
He traced the lines of a spell that promised to call down a powerful storm, but his mind kept returning to the storm of a different sort he intended to unleash that night.
As twilight began to bleed into the deep indigo of evening, the strange black sky was fully gone, and everything felt even more profound.
