Page 172 of Elemental Becoming

But I cling to him.

The heat of his hands searing against my skin. The solid force of his presence, rooting me in reality. The sound of his breathingin my ears, cutting through the havoc. Pulling me back to him.

And his eyes—smoke-gray, burning, fierce. They lock onto mine with desperate certainty, willing me to stay.

Thane presses a fierce kiss to my lips, then pulls back, his eyes drawing me back to him.

He breathes in. I breathe with him. The bond breathes with both of us.

I pull the magics back—pull myself back.

And finally, it listens.

The wind calms. The water settles. The fire dims. The earth stops shaking. And suddenly, I am just me again. Trembling. Exhausted. But still standing.

Still whole.

The power still lingers in my veins, humming beneath my skin, pulsing in time with my erratic heartbeat. The storm inside me has settled—but it has not disappeared.

It waits. Coiled. Ready.

I stagger slightly, breath ragged, my fingers trembling, still tingling with residual energy. Thane’s grip keeps me upright.

“You’re in control now,” he says firmly, the same way he would command a soldier in battle.

I nod, swallowing hard.

I roll my shoulders back, straightening. This power isn’t meant to be feared. It isn’t meant to be held back. It is meant to be used. And I will use it.

“This is why I chose you, Virelya. Because you are stronger than you realize,”Calryx reminds me.

She feels everything I feel. Her presence wraps around me like a cloak on a bitter winter morning. I am not alone.

Then a dark presence gathers before me, thick and suffocating, the air itself warping around it as though the void has begun to open. And then—he steps forward.

Not from the swirling blackness, but as though he has alwaysbeen standing there, waiting.

His face is pale as bone. Pale as snow. Flawless, unnatural, sculpted rather than born. His silver eyes catch the light but do not hold it. Luminous and cold, they miss nothing. White hair spills over his shoulders, untouched by time, woven chains of silver gleaming against the obsidian sheen of his armor.

He is refined. Lethal. A vision of power honed to its sharpest edge.

And his gaze is locked entirely on me.

“Impressive,” he murmurs, his voice slithering through the air, layered in overlapping tones as though multiple voices speak at once.

“You have power, but you don’t know what you are yet, do you?”

A shiver races down my spine, but I don’t let it show.

I lift my chin. “I know enough to end you.”

His mouth curves into a twisted smile. “We’ll see.”

Then he moves. The shadows explode outward, rushing toward me like tendrils of ink in water. The air thickens, pressing in from all sides, pulling at my limbs, dragging at my power.

They want to consume me.

They won’t.