Page 177 of Elemental Becoming

“Next time,” Valen continues, more quietly now, though no less serious, “you may not be able to pull yourself back.”

I swallow. Because for the first time I wonder if he’s right. But part of me knows he’s wrong. I had Calryx and Thane with me.

I feel Thane’s gaze on me even after Valen steps away. He hasn’t moved. Hasn’t let go. And I know what this is. Fear.

Fear that I pushed too far. Fear that I’ll do it again. Fear that next time, I won’t come back.

“Thane.”

He doesn’t speak. Just watches me. Just holds me.

But I don’t know what to say to him. Because I know he isn’t afraid of my power.

He’s afraid of losing me.

I exhale shakily, staggering on wobbly legs, the Elemental force inside me still raw. My body feels strange—like it belongs to me and yet somehow doesn’t. Like I left too much of myself inside the power I unleashed.

Thane is still holding me upright, his grip like iron.

The ballroom falls eerily silent.

But my ears still ring with the echoes of battle—the ring of steel, the screams, the hiss of fire meeting shadow. Now, there is only the quiet aftermath. Bodies litter the floor. Some are shadow creatures, nothing but wisps of darkness curling into the air, fading into nothingness.

Others are not.

The silence doesn’t last.

A ragged sob breaks through it. Then another. A sharp, keening wail rises through the ruined ballroom.

People begin snapping out of their shock all at once, horror crashing over them in brutal waves. Cries of grief, of pain, of relief erupt from every direction. Figures stumble through thewreckage, searching desperately for loved ones, shaking fallen bodies, praying for breath that will never come.

Blood stains the marble—red and black, life and shadow mingled together.

A woman screams as she clutches a lifeless body to her chest, rocking back and forth as though she can somehow force life back into it. Nearby, a man staggers through the debris with one hand pressed tightly against a wound in his side, his face pale with shock.

Healers burst into the ballroom, moving with frantic urgency, their robes already streaked with blood before they even kneel beside the fallen.

Rowena’s voice rises above the chaos as she shouts orders, directing survivors and securing the wounded.

Beside me, Thane sighs, and the last traces of emotion disappear behind the mask of command.

The Warlord.

The leader.

The man who now has to answer for everything that just happened.

“Stay safe,” he says, already slipping back into command.

I blink. “I—”

“Garrick,” Thane calls over his shoulder.

He appears almost immediately, blood still splattered across his tunic as his sharp eyes sweep over me in quick assessment.

I follow his gaze down. To the ruins of my dress, torn and singed, the once-rich crimson fabric now tattered, streaked with soot and blood.

I look back at Thane. At what the battle has done to him. His clothes are slashed and scorched, smeared with blackened shadow residue and blood from wounds not yet treated.