Page 260 of Elemental Becoming

They need the Spiritborn.

Even if I don’t know how to be that title tonight. Even if part of me believes I never truly was.

Thane almost always wears black for formal occasions, but tonight he’s dressed in white. A crisp tunic and fitted trousers, unadorned except for the silver clasp at his collar. The color is stark against his skin, mourning transformed into something sacred. A gesture of reverence. A symbol of peace.

Elira helped me get ready for the ceremony.

She pinned my hair to one side, soft waves cascading over my shoulder. Tiny clips were tucked throughout, slivers of silver and glass set with sparkling gems that catch the firelight. From a distance, it looks like starlight scattered across the night sky.

I wear white too, along with the other members of the court and council.

My dress is sleeveless, modest in the front but cut low across the back. The fabric falls in light, layered folds to my ankles, whispering with each step. The open back leaves my Elemental markings bare, each tattoo glowing faintly beneath the flickering firelight.

Fire.

Air.

Water.

Earth.

Tonight, I feel the weight of them more than ever.

But Elira did more than dress me. While she worked, she toldme what would be expected of me. Not as the Spiritborn, but as the Warlord’s partner.

Thane had told me how the ceremony would unfold. He told me what I would need to do, how I would stand beside him, how I would be seen. But only as the Spiritborn.

He never told me what it means to stand beside him in front of all these people. He never told me that the court already sees us as partners. That the citizens do too.

That to them, I am already the woman who stands beside the Warlord.

That realization settles over me like a weight I hadn’t known I was expected to carry.

Rowena and Sera stand on Thane’s other side, their dresses nearly identical to mine, save for the covered backs. Rowena’s flame tattoo gleams along her upper right arm, a band of gold and crimson that pulses faintly whenever she moves.

Below the dais stand Garrick, Rian, and Jarek alongside members of the ruling council and several high-ranking figures from the court. Like us, they wear white. Even Garrick, who usually finds some way to bend the rules, wears the color without complaint.

Rian’s expression is calm, almost unreadable. Jarek stands like stone, his face somber.

Valen stands among them, robed in white linen, the carved lines of his staff catching the firelight. His gaze is distant, but his presence anchors the space.

I let my eyes drift beyond the dais, searching the sea of firelight and movement for a single bright thread.

And I find her.

Lyra’s red hair, pulled into a tight, elegant bun, catches the light even in shadow. She sits only a few rows back, close enough that I could almost call her name. She’s wearing a long dress of layered browns and greens in honor of Earth Clan. It suits her.

Strong. Steady. Rooted in something deep.

Beside her, Kieran sits with his arm still supported by a sling. The bruises shadow his face as he carries the quiet weight of recovery. He’s dressed in the blues and silvers of Air Clan, colors that remind me of the sky just before sunrise.

A quiet kind of strength.

Seeing them here, safe and together, grounds me in a way nothing else has tonight.

My gaze drifts farther through the crowd.

The stone benches carved into the volcanic cliffs are nearly full, warriors and citizens of every clan gathered beneath the same firelit sky. Some wear the colors of a single lineage. Others carry more than one heritage woven into their clothing.