Elara's POV
The champagne glass slipped through my fingers.
I watched it fall, watching it shatter against the marble floor of the Grand Hall, just like my heart was about to shatter. But nobody noticed. Three hundred nobles in their fancy storm-silk gowns and diamond-studded jackets were too busy watching him.
Watching Aldric dance with my sister. Again.
"Miss Elara, are you alright?" A servant whispered beside me, already sweeping up the broken glass.
No. I wasn't alright. This was supposed to be my engagement ball. My night. The night I finally became somebody instead of the embarrassing, magicless daughter everyone pretended didn't exist.
But Aldric had danced with Cassian four times already. Four times while I stood here alone by the gift table, smiling like an idiot.
"I'm fine," I lied, the words tasting like ash.
Across the ballroom, Aldric spun Cassian under the crystal chandeliers, and she laughed—that beautiful, tinkling laugh that made everyone love her. Her storm-blue gown sparkled with real lightning magic woven into the fabric. My silver dress was just... silver. Plain. Powerless. Like me.
Two years. Aldric had courted me for two years. He'd held my hand in the gardens, whispered sweet words, made me believe someone could actually want the girl with no magic. Made me believe I mattered.
I was such a fool.
"Elara." My father's voice cut through my thoughts like ice. Lord Matthias Thornwick stood beside me, not even looking at me, just staring at Aldric and Cassian with approval in his eyes. "Stop sulking. You're embarrassing the family."
"Father, I—"
"Your sister is a credit to House Thornwick," he continued like I hadn't spoken. "Powerful magic, perfect manners, everything a noble daughter should be." His cold eyes finally landed on me. "Unlike some."
The words hit like a slap. Twenty-three years of those words, and they still hurt just as much.
Before I could respond, the music stopped. The entire ballroom went quiet. Aldric was walking toward me, still holding Cassian's hand, and my stomach twisted with hope and dread all tangled together.
Maybe he was coming to finally dance with me. Maybe everything would be okay.
"Elara." Aldric's voice was gentle as he reached me, that same gentle voice that had made me fall in love with him. He took my hand—his other hand still holding Cassian's—and led me to the center of the ballroom.
Everyone turned to watch. Hundreds of eyes on me. This was it. The official announcement. My heart hammered.
Then Aldric spoke, and my world ended.
"I can't marry you."
The words didn't make sense at first. I stared at him, still smiling stupidly, waiting for the joke to make sense.
"What?" My voice came out small, broken.
"I'm sorry, Elara. Truly." But his eyes weren't sorry. They were relieved. "My heart belongs to another. To Cassian. We've been trying to fight it, but love can't be denied."
The ballroom exploded with gasps and whispers. I felt them like knives in my back.
"You... and Cassian?" I looked at my sister. She bit her lip, looking sorry but not sorry enough. Not nearly sorry enough.
"You understand, don't you?" Aldric continued, still holding my hand like this was reasonable. Like he wasn't destroying me in front of everyone I'd ever known. "You're sweet, Elara. You're kind. But Cassian and I are meant for greatness. You deserve someone more..." He paused, and that pause said everything. "Someone more suited to your... limitations."
Limitations. He meant no magic. He meant worthless.
Someone in the crowd laughed. Then another. Soon the whispers turned to barely hidden snickers.
"Of course the magicless one got dumped."
"Poor thing. She really thought a Duke would want her?"
"At least the pretty sister will make a proper Duchess."
My father nodded slowly, like this had all been planned. Like he'd known and approved. My own father.
Cassian stepped forward, taking Aldric's hand fully now. "Elara, I never meant to hurt you," she said softly. "But when real love happens, you can't just ignore it. You'll understand someday."
No. No, I wouldn't.
Because I'd loved Aldric. Really loved him. And he'd used me—used me to get close to my powerful, perfect sister.
Two years of lies. Two years of pretending I was worth something.
The ballroom spun. I couldn't breathe. Three hundred people staring at me, whispering, laughing at the pathetic magicless girl who thought she could have a fairytale.
I should say something. Do something. Scream or cry or slap him.
But I couldn't move. Couldn't think. Could only stand there drowning in shame while everyone watched.
Then something inside me cracked. Not broke—just cracked. And through that crack, something cold and hard pushed through.
I pulled my hand from Aldric's grip.
"Elara—" he started.
"Don't." My voice came out steady. Flat. "Don't say my name like we're friends."
I turned to face the ballroom. Three hundred nobles. Three hundred people who'd spent my whole life looking through me like I was invisible. Who'd laughed at me, pitied me, dismissed me.
I looked at every single one of them. Let them see me. Really see me for once.
Then I turned and walked toward the doors. My head high. My back straight. Like a queen, not a victim.
"Elara, wait!" Cassian called. "We should talk about this!"
I didn't stop. Didn't look back.
The whispers followed me like a cloud of poison.
"Where's she going?"
"Poor thing's probably going to cry herself sick."
"She'll be back tomorrow, apologizing for making a scene."
No. I wouldn't.
I walked through the manor, past servants who stared but didn't dare speak to me. Past my mother's portrait in the hall—the mother who died when I was ten, maybe from shame at having a magicless daughter. Past the library where I'd spent years reading, trying to find some spell that would make me special.
I walked through the gardens where Aldric had kissed me under the moonlight and promised forever.
Lies. All lies.
I reached the gates of the estate, and still I kept walking.
Into the night. Into the rain that had started falling like the sky was crying for me.
And ahead, on the horizon, I saw something that made me stop.
A storm. Not a normal storm—a massive, swirling nightmare of black clouds and lightning that lit up the sky like daylight. The kind of storm that killed people. The kind storm-callers spent days trying to push away from cities.
But this one was coming closer. Coming fast.
And I didn't care.
I started walking toward it.
Behind me, thunder rumbled. Or maybe it was my name being called from the manor. I didn't turn to check.
The rain soaked through my silver gown, making it heavy, but I kept walking. Toward the forbidden storm. Toward the fields beyond the estate where nobody went because the lightning was too dangerous.
My feet moved faster. Running now.
The storm roared overhead, wind tearing at my hair. Lightning struck so close I felt the heat of it.
I reached the empty field and stopped right in the center, raising my face to the sky.
"I have nothing!" I screamed at the storm. "No magic! No family! No one who loves me! What am I even for?"
My voice broke on the last word. Tears mixed with rain on my face.
"If I'm so worthless, then why am I even here? Why make me live like this?"
The storm answered with a crack of thunder so loud it shook the ground.
And then, like the sky itself had been waiting for me to ask, lightning struck down.
Straight into my chest.
I should have died. Every law of nature said I should have burned to ash.
Instead, the lightning poured into me like water into a cup.
And the cup shattered.
Power exploded from inside me—silver-white light that made the storm itself pause. The seal that had been crushing my magic for twenty-three years cracked, then broke completely.
I felt it wake up. My real power. Huge and ancient and terrifying.
Above me, the clouds started spinning. Faster. Forming a vortex that tore a hole in the sky itself.
Through that hole, something looked back at me.
Something with eyes like hurricanes.
And a voice like thunder whispered in my mind:
"Finally. After eight hundred years... someone called me."