Page 2 of Elemental Becoming

Amara met death today—and defied it. Its cold fingers scraped her soul, but she refused to let it claim someone she loved.

My arm remained secure around Amara’s waist as we made our way back through the tunnels. She had told me she was fine, but I hadn’t believed her.

The color still hadn’t returned to her cheeks. Faint shadows lingered beneath her eyes that hadn’t been there before we entered the passageway beneath the ruins, and every so often I felt her lean just a fraction more of her weight against me before catching herself, determined not to let anyone notice.

I noticed.

I always would.

My conversation with Valen as we walked back to where the escort was waiting replayed in my mind.

He’d admitted he’d never seen a creature like the one we’d fought. The oldest records spoke of monstrous worms thatburrowed beneath the earth, but even those accounts were little more than passing references. They hadn’t been seen since before the Shadow Wars. Most scholars believed they’d gone extinct long ago.

Long extinct.

Valen had only ever heard them mentioned in conversations with the oldest historians. Never in a context that suggested they still existed.

Yet one had.

Beneath our feet.

Waiting.

The creature itself was troubling enough.

What unsettled me more was the implication of its existence.

It hadn’t wandered into those tunnels by chance. It had survived unseen for centuries . . . or something had awakened it.

Neither possibility sat well.

My gaze finds her again. She laughed at something Garrick said, the sound carried to me on the afternoon breeze. It’s impossible to reconcile that woman with the one who had nearly died in my arms only hours earlier.

My mind wanders back to the lagoon. The night we stopped pretending duty could drown out what we wanted.

Fireflies drifted around us like stars brought to earth. When she straddled me, her skin warm against mine and her beautiful gaze upon me, the intimacy was almost unbearable. And when her magics burst free as she came, her eyes still held mine—fear and wonder and something holy flickering through them in the same breath.

She’s stronger now. I did the best I could to give her a foundation, and she is building a godsdamned mountain.

I’ve given her everything I have—as a warrior and as the Warlord. She’s grown so much and can now hold her own against some of the realm’s most skilled soldiers.

Since bonding with Calryx, she channels magics like no rider in any tale I’ve ever heard. She doesn’t just channel the four Elements; she merges the wild and untamed, and creates something entirely new. She steps into the unknown with the courage of a soldier charging the front line.

And yet . . . she’s still human.

Soft. Gentle.

A heart so open it terrifies me.

She has become my whole world.

Those eyes—gods, those eyes—they’ve captured my soul.

I smile.

Sitting atop her horse, Amara smiles back. And in that moment, all I want is to reach out, trace her cheek, just to make sure she’s real.

This happens to me a lot—the quiet disbelief that someone like her, someone made of light itself, could ever be mine.