The house had fallen quiet. His mother and sister were long asleep, the lamplight in the hall flickering low. Only Eryndor and Lyanna remained awake, seated across from each other on the balcony that overlooked the gardens.
The night was cool, wind brushing the leaves, carrying the scent of river water. Sparks lingered faintly around Eryndor's fingers—his storm never fully slept anymore. Lyanna leaned back, her eyes catching the faint glow as if studying something she had missed for too long.
"You've grown sharper," she said softly. "But not harder. I can still see the boy under all that thunder."
He chuckled under his breath. "And you've grown harder. You speak like someone who's walked a hundred roads since I last saw you."
She tilted her head, eyes narrowing as if testing his words. "I have. And I've survived because of it."
"What carried you through?" he asked, though he already knew she would never answer plainly.
Lyanna extended her hand. Air shimmered, and flame kindled in her palm. But it wasn't ordinary fire—each flicker bent the wind around it, dancing sharper, brighter, hotter.
"I'm not like you," she said. "I wasn't chosen by the storm. But I learned to bend two things that hate one another—wind and flame—and make them obey me. My affinities are air and fire. When I fight, I weave them into one."
She clenched her fist, and the fire vanished, leaving only a small curl of smoke. "Martial arts taught me the control to keep them balanced. One slip, and I'd burn myself away."
Eryndor watched her hand lower, silent. She had always been like this—defiant against odds, carving strength out of nothing. And yet, she never spoke of it with pride. Only as fact.
"Wind and fire," he murmured. "And me with wind and lightning…"
For a moment, silence stretched between them, but not uncomfortable. The thought crept unbidden into his mind—what if those powers mixed not just on a battlefield, but in blood?
A child born of storm and flame.
A martial artist raised with dual affinities from birth.
Would they inherit the tempest? Or something stranger—something the world had never seen?
The idea stirred something inside him, half fear, half awe. And maybe, if he admitted it, a quiet longing.
Lyanna leaned closer, brushing her shoulder against his. "You're thinking too much again."
He turned toward her, and for once, the storm inside him stilled. He didn't think. He let the silence between them speak. And when their lips met, it was less a spark and more a surrender—the kind of moment where two paths, long divided, finally converged.
The night did not rush. There were no armies, no Titans, no generals barking orders. Only two people who had once circled one another with glances and words, finally breaking the distance.
Later, when the lanterns had burned low and the balcony was empty, Eryndor lay awake, the thought echoing louder now than ever before:
If a storm and a flame could meet and not destroy one another… what might they create?