Kess wasn’t sure what she’d expected when she released the limits on her powers. Utter destruction, perhaps, or even death. But while her powers were indeed wild and untamed, she found they did, at least try to follow her wants and needs. Perhaps, like an animal attached to a host, her Fulminancy simply wanted her to survive as much as she did.

  The harder part was directing it away from Draven. Her Fulminancy didn’t seem to understand the concept of innocents, or of collateral damage. As her battle with the Councilman went on, the square was strewn with rubble, and Kess was very grateful for its size and open layout. She managed to steer an errant strike away from Draven and towards the Councilman at the last second, but it cost her dearly; something struck her torso, hard and fast, and Kess cried out, grabbing at her ribcage.

  The Councilman used her momentary distraction to attack again. This time, Kess heard the snap near her ear, and just rolled in time to avoid an attack from the back. She came up on one knee, gathered as much Fulminancy as she could muster into her hands, and simply swung it at the Councilman like an oversized sword.

  He hadn’t been expecting that. He flew into a nearby tree, Kess’s Fulminancy singeing his clothes before twining away from him and back into the air. Kess would have found it poetic if she wasn’t checking the wound in her side. It would hold, for now.

  What Kess wasn’t certain would hold was her stamina. I’ve been doing too well, she realized. Beginner’s luck might have accounted for much of it, but Kess knew how deep that well of power reached—deeper still, than what she dredged up now. The problem was that she was simply using it up much too fast. She was gasping for air, and a sick weakness crept into her legs that threatened to bring her down.

  The Councilman’s motions were less confident as he dashed back towards her, but Kess had spent enough time in a ring to know when an opponent had her. He knows he’s almost gassed me out too, she realized. Her suspicions were confirmed when he launched into a series of fast, exhausting attacks, the flashes illuminating the nearby buildings as Kess forced herself to dodge, roll, and occasionally snuff the attacks out with her own Fulminancy.

  I have to finish this now, she thought, trying to dodge with as little movement as possible. No one from Stone Market left to help, though Kess wasn’t sure she could blame them. Instead, she focused on building up every last bit of Fulminancy she could for one final attack.

  It wove itself into a column as thick as a tree, moving with her like a churning vortex even as she dodged, wove, and stumbled through the Councilman’s series of attacks. He eyed it warily, but his attacks were efficient, cruel, and unrelenting. His eyes were on the prize.

  Kess was exhausted, her limbs heavy and her lungs empty, but she grinned anyway, sweat streaming down her face. Her vortex arced into the sky to join with the Lightstorm there, and as the Councilman brought up his hands to lob another strike, Kess knew the distance was wrong. Fulminancy couldn’t fly through the air, after all—not without being attached to its owner.

  She ripped her Fulminancy away and threw it towards the Councilman, grunting with the effort. It went, reluctantly, swallowing the man whole. Kess watched him, engulfed in the light of her own Fulminancy, and felt a churning mixture of shame, pride, and relief.

  Perhaps she’d saved Draven, but at what cost?

  She turned back towards her mentor and father, but not before she saw a tiny glint out of the corner of her eye—Fulminancy, traveling towards her fast. But how…

  Kess willed her body to move.

  Nothing happened.

  Instead, her legs simply gave out, but not before the Fulminancy plowed into her body, sending her flying again. She tumbled through the courtyard, a ball of pain and light, and slammed into a low garden wall. Something sharp bit into her arm. She fumbled for it with thick fingers and found a piece of metal lodged deep into her arm. Too weak to pull it out, she simply left it there. Her vision threatened to black, but Kess held on, as she had for so many years in the ring. To black out was to die, whether she was in a ring or not.

  Footsteps approached—unsteady, but confident. The Councilman crouched before her suddenly, his face swimming in her vision.

  “You have remarkable talent,” he said, his breath rasping as he spoke. “How you remained down here undetected for so long, we’ll never know. Mariel herself would envy what you have—it’s incredible.”

  “How did you—” Kess began, then tried again when her voice came out as a thin rasp. “How did you—Fulminancy can’t detach, can it?”

  “Of course it can,” he snapped dismissively. “Particularly when you attach it to an object that resonates appropriately with it.” He said the words like they were obvious, and dimly, Kess realized he was talking about the chunk of metal lodged in her arm. She fumbled to remove it again, but her arms wouldn’t move. Nearby, Draven still breathed, somehow, though a pool of his own blood crept out from his body.

  I’ve failed, Kess realized, closing her eyes. I wasn’t enough. The man gripped her face, studying her, and a creeping sense of dread wormed its way into Kess’s mind again. Her skin prickled, and the panic she’d pushed aside for survival’s sake roared inside her mind again.

  “Perhaps this is what Mariel was intending all this time,” the man murmured, holding her face. “A coalescing of all that power—like a conduit for it.” He shook his head. “The power to change and shape worlds.”

  He released her, then fished in his pocket for something—handcuffs, Kess realized. She managed to work some movement back into her limbs and lurched away from the wall. The Councilman lunged for her.

  An arc of dark lilac Fulminancy slammed into the man, knocking him sideways. Kess stared as her Shadow—the cloaked figure who’d been following her the better half of the year—dropped from the garden wall, her own face masked and hooded, and simply nodded at Kess.

  “I wouldn’t sit there much longer,” the figure said, voice garbled by Fulminancy. “I don’t fancy myself much of a fighter tonight.”

  Kess scrambled to her feet slowly, and lurched towards Draven even as a new fight erupted in front of her, a bombastic mixture of purples and blues, clashing in the night.

  Half walking, half falling, Kess knelt beside Draven and shook his shoulder gently. He groaned in response.

  “Draven,” she whispered. “Draven, we need to leave.”

  Miraculously, the man turned over and made it partially to his feet. Kess tried to help as best as she could, though she was half Draven’s size, and carried her own share of wounds and exhaustion. Still, she got under his arm on his wounded side, and together, they inched their way from the square.

  Fulminancy snapped at them as they did so, but none of it touched them. Whoever Kess’s Shadow was, she was practiced and efficient—the Councilman was outclassed and forced to let Kess and Draven limp away.

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  They made it perhaps a block before Draven shuddered and convulsed, and Kess, trapped under his arm, was nearly crushed as he simply pitched forward into the street.

  Kess tried to support Draven’s weight, but her legs collapsed out from under her, and her knees crashed into the ground as Draven simply went limp over her. Kess forced herself out from under his heavy arm, panicking, and rolled him over.

  His face was pale—too pale. She fumbled for her scarf, a sense of relief washing over her as his chest rose and fell slowly. Still alive, she thought. For now. The scarf came away slowly with her cold, clumsy fingers, still weak from the fight. Kess pressed it into his wound as hard as she could, and it came away soaked. She held it there, hoping to staunch the bleeding, but her own arms shook in protest.

  How much power did I use back there? She wondered, arms trembling. How much time do I have left before—

  Draven let out a groan, and his eyes fluttered open. He smiled at her weakly, and Kess choked back a sob. Where would she go from here? How would she—weakened as she was—drag Draven to safety? If I could just get him back to Claire, she thought, then maybe…

  “Lass,” Draven croaked. He knocked away her arm with his own, and Kess was shocked at the lack of strength in her body as he did so. “Save yourself. You’re not out of the woods yet.”

  “I’m not leaving without you,” Kess said, and tried to cover his wound again. He caught her arm with a shocking amount of strength, and for a moment, Kess dared believe he might be okay—that Draven was simply faking his injury to avoid tangling with the Fulminant. “Draven, I—I need to tell you something. I—“

  “I know what you are, lass,” he said, holding her eyes. Kess wove a bit where she crouched in the street, the Lightstorm wind whipping her hair into her face.

  “That’s not everything,” she said quietly. “It’s more than being Fulminant. It’s—“

  “I know all of it,” he said, his voice solemn. “There was never…any reason to be ashamed of it, lass.” His eyes left her face and focused on some distant point in the storm above. “We all come down here to forget something. Maybe you came down here to forget yourself, but doing so has an odd way of reminding you who you really are.”

  As he spoke, his voice faded to almost a whisper, and Kess had to strain to hear it over the crackling of the storm. “You…” he trailed off, coughing. “You came to save us, didn’t you, lass?”

  Kess shook her head, tears running down her face, her grip on Draven’s hand ice cold and so tight her bones creaked.

  “You did,” he said, eyes glassy. “It was always for the people. I knew it would…find a way…back where it belonged. Down here. Protecting them. I was…” He trailed off again, and Kess’s tears hit his blood-soaked shirt. It was too much, she realized. Entirely too much blood, even for a man his size. “I was proud to serve you,” he whispered. “Don’t lose…”

  He coughed again, and his grip tightened on Kess’s hand with sudden intensity. He closed his eyes and let out a shuddering sigh. His next words were stronger, with a final note to them. “Whatever you do, lass, make me proud.”

  Draven grew still. Kess let out a choked sound, then shook his shoulder, but he didn’t respond. And so, she sat back, tears streaming down her face, her Fulminancy whipping senselessly into the night as she knelt before Draven’s body, head bowed, knowing she’d failed the only people in the world who had ever mattered to her.

  “It wasn’t for the people, Draven,” she finally whispered, her words dying on the wind. “It was never for them. It was only for death.”

  After that, she simply sat quietly, unable to move, unable to feel anything but disbelief. He couldn’t be gone. He would sit up soon, laughing at the grand joke he’d played on her—a ploy to simply finally get her to use Fulminancy.

  That’s it, she thought dimly. That’s what will happen.

  She knew as soon as she thought it that it was a lie.

  She didn’t know how long she sat there, unflinching as lightning snapped into buildings nearby and let out ear-piercing peals of energy. She didn’t know when the tears stopped, or when her body finally went numb, a sweet sort of relief from the pain of her many injuries. She didn’t know how long her own Fulminancy danced around her, playing in the air above the macabre sight of Draven’s body.

  A particularly nasty bolt of lightning drew her out of her shocked mourning for just long enough to notice the Shadow, lurking nearby, watching her. Waiting for something.

  Wasn’t she…helping me? Kess’s thoughts were dull, her mind an empty buzz. She knew she should move, but how could she leave Draven behind? Her eyes drifted back to Draven again. But was it really him anymore?

  Yes, a part of her insisted. He deserved the dignity of a proper burial in the rocks of the nearby mountain. He didn’t deserve to be left here, in a pool of his own blood, as cloudspawn pecked at his corpse.

  Through some strength Kess hadn’t known she had, she lurched to her feet, rolled Draven over, and wedged herself underneath his torso. She focused on the small motions required to position herself, instead of the weight of Draven’s corpse draped over her back. As it was, she could only sort of half drag him through the streets.

  Her back screamed in protest, and Kess was uncertain how much longer her body would tolerate the abuse. Her Fulminancy still whipped around erratically, and her arm and torso bled freely.

  And yet, she stumbled forward. She would get Draven somewhere safe—wherever that was.

  The boom and crack of Fulminancy startled Kess out of her slow, creeping progress forward—her Shadow, landing nearby. Kess stopped, which wasn’t hard to do, slumped as she was under Drav’s weight.

  “What do you want?” she asked. Her voice rasped on the words, broken and grim.

  “Now, now, is that any way to treat the woman who saved you?” the Shadow asked. The voice was distinctly female, though it hummed in a way that made the nuance of the voice hard to parse. Fulminant energy circled her throat in the same way it had the Councilman’s. She smiled, a crackling energy gathering in her hand.

  “Why bother saving me?” Kess asked, numb to the threat. If anything, her anger rose at the injustice of it. She’d done all of this for nothing. Draven was dead, Oliver gone, and Kess would die too. What good had Fulminancy done her? “Why bother following me, helping me, getting rid of that Councilman for me if you intended to kill me all this time?”

  The Shadow’s smile faded. “Because you weren’t ready,” she said, her voice quiet. “And they weren’t worthy of facing you.” She gave Kess a little up and down glance, and nodded grimly at the Fulminancy snapping at Kess’s cloak. “But this will do. It’s been a good hunt, Seventh Seat—but all good things must come to an end.” The snap of the woman’s darkened Fulminancy echoed off the nearby buildings, and Kess flinched in spite of herself. “Isn’t that right…” The woman trailed off, and her Fulminancy popped again. She smiled grimly. “…Mariel?”

  Kess took a small, shuddering breath and let it out slowly. She shrugged Draven’s weight off and let him fall to the street as gently as she could manage. It was only a matter of time, she reminded herself. They were bound to send someone after you, eventually. But why now, when Draven was still and motionless before her? Why now, when she’d only just begun to touch her powers again? And why now, when she’d been helpless for years on end, without any way of defending against the Fulminant?

  Kess pushed the thoughts aside, her arm throbbing viciously where she hadn’t bothered to remove the piece of metal from the Councilman. She looked up at her Shadow, exhausted, knowing she’d failed. There was no point in pretending anymore.

  “Mariel died that night,” Kess said quietly, dredging up Fulminant energy from even deeper inside than she had with the Councilman. Shockingly, she found it there, exultant at her touch, though it writhed like something slippery—it was hard to control and even harder to direct. Still, she wouldn’t need to direct it for this. “She died that night,” Kess repeated, “but I never needed to be Mariel to deal with you.”

  The Shadow regarded her casually as Kess’s Fulminancy stuttered and crackled back to life, twisting and writhing into the sky. Gone was the relative control of her fight earlier. Gone was any sense of self-preservation. Kess simply gave her powers every bit of life she had, and let them fly.

  She didn’t need to ascend to the Seat of Mariel to use her powers. She’d never needed to be what the Council demanded of her. She could have her powers, raw and untamed, without being manipulated and controlled.

  As her Fulminancy crackled around her, wild and terrifying, Kess finally felt freedom—and knew that it would cost her.

  “No,” her Shadow finally replied, her voice grim. “I never thought you did.”

  Kess smiled a little, and though her Shadow was wreathed in her own Fulminancy, Kess thought she saw understanding there.

  “Make it a good death,” she whispered.

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