I come back to the sound of my name whispered over and over as Baelen gathers me up into his arms, both of us trembling hard. He pulls me in to his side, leaning back against the cave wall while I curl my legs over his. We stay that way for a long time as the roar of thunder and rain continues outside.

I find myself falling asleep against his chest. Until there’s a strange rumbling in it, making my head and shoulders wobble. I look up at him in alarm only to find that he’s chuckling. It’s such a rare sight that I sit up and take it in for a moment, not caring that I’m still completely naked.

He grins and lifts an eyebrow at me. “Twice?”

I match his smile and slide against him, curling my upper leg around his and my arm across his broad chest. “Twice,” I say with a satisfied growl. “I’ll expect that again, thank you.”

In three year’s time.

My smile fades and I bury my head against his neck before he sees my happiness slip away. Being separated from him now feels like I’m about to lose an arm or a leg. I want to fight it with everything I have, stop time, stop tomorrow from coming.

As the rain eases outside, he lifts me up, kissing my forehead and cheeks. Without a word, he picks up our clothing, shaking my dress off before handing it to me. I pull everything back on reluctantly, including my cloak, wanting to stretch out the minutes. When we’re finally dressed again, I wait at the cave’s entrance, watching the final drips of rain, while Baelen retrieves his drawing book.

The sky is still dark. Evening has arrived. There’s an occasional streak of lightning in the distance, but the worst of the storm is over. When Baelen reaches me, he opens his book and pulls out my ribbon, running it through his fingers. He slides my hair forward, pulling the ribbon around it and tying it at the side of my neck.

I stop him, entwining my fingers with his. “I want you to have it.”

“But if you go home without it…”

“My mother will have to believe that I lost it.”

He hesitates. “When I get back, I’ll bring you a thousand ribbons. All blue.”

I kiss the side of his suddenly serious mouth. “I don’t need a thousand ribbons.” I slide the material free from my hair and wrap his hand around it. I ache to touch his skin again, search the contours of his face and neck and other parts of him that I’m suddenly not afraid to think about.

He kisses me back, the ribbon peeking from his fist. Dark clouds swirl outside as I press into him. My hair splays out and my purple coat floats upward. I suddenly feel… weightless.

At the same time, he whispers to me. “Marbella Mercy, I give you my heart.”

The wind tugs at me, insistent, my coat billowing. “Baelen Rath, I—”

As I speak, the ribbon slips from his fingers, picked up by the wind, stolen right out of his fingertips. He snatches at it, but it whips upward. He steps out onto the ledge, chasing the twirling blue material. But I don’t care about that scrap of cloth. All I care about is what I need to tell him: I love you.

I chase after him, closing the distance between us, tugging him to a stop and hurtling into him. He throws his arms around me and we let the ribbon swirl upward, high above us, disappearing into the darkness.

I say, “I don’t need it. I only need you.”

He leans down to kiss me but as I tilt my head back to accept his kiss…

A flash of light streaks high in the sky.

It’s so bright that it tears the sound out of my throat. It’s so sudden I don’t have time to feel fear. It’s so savage it drives the air from my lungs. It crackles and shrieks, drowning every other sound, filling me with a silent scream.

There’s only reflex. Only instinct. Only knowing that Baelen’s body protects me—that the lightning will strike him, kill him, and I can’t let that happen. I push him away from me, away from the strike, with all the strength I have. He registers shock and surprise that I shoved him, but at the same time he follows my line of sight upward, sees the lightning, sees me standing beneath it…

As electricity lights up the space around us it illuminates his eyes and all the fear in them, fear I’ve never seen him show before. Fear for me the same as I feel for him. He swivels and tries to get back to me, tries to cover me with his body again even though I don’t want him to. But his feet collide with the rocky outcrop.

He slips on the wet rocks…

falls…

smashes his head against the overhanging stone…

“Bae—!” The lightning slams into me, catching me in its burning rays. Pain rips through me, tearing me apart, sharp as a thousand daggers, hot as burning pokers, tearing me limb from limb. A scream shrieks through me, slashing through my throat.

But it’s not a single lightning strike. Not a strike that hits and disappears. The lightning doesn’t stop. It streams around me on and on. Pain shreds me into tiny pieces and it has no end. I can’t move. I can’t escape. All I can do is scream. Why hasn’t it stopped? Why haven’t I died?

The light is so bright it could be daylight on the cliff. Baelen lies on his side so close yet so far away from me, blood dripping from the deep slash down the side of his face and jaw. He doesn’t move and I can’t tell if he’s breathing. I can’t tell if he’s alive.

He has to be alive! I have to get to him. I have to help him. I have to know that he’s okay. I reach forward, pulling and struggling, trying to escape the storm’s grip, pushing through the pain, stretching out my arms and hands as far as I can. I scream with effort trying to break the lightning’s grasp.

But as soon as I lift my arms, I sense it—the lightning pulsing through me, traveling through me. My eyes widen with horror and realization, but it’s too late. The lightning shrieks through me, through my hands, through my fingers, into the air, across the distance and… into Baelen.

The impact picks him up, a curl of electricity seizing him and lifting him high into the air. His unconscious body glows red and orange, suspended, connected to me through the shining thread. He shudders, jolts, burns. I’m hurting him even more than I already did by pushing him. I’m killing him.

It’s my fault.

It’s all my fault.

I scream with the effort to pull my hands back, trying to curl my fingers into fists and drag my elbows to my sides, forcing my hands down. Finally, finally, I break the connection. The lightning releases him and he plummets to the ground, half on the rocks, half on the ledge, smoke rising from his body in white curls. What have I done?

“Let me go!” I scream into the sky—at the lightning shining back and forth between me and the boiling clouds. It’s a brilliant, white thread connecting me to the expanse above and it widens before my eyes, expanding beyond me, beyond the cliff’s edge, ten feet wide and growing.

At the same time, the clouds explode into thunder and fireworks made of multi-colored lightning. The thunder crashes. The wind howls. A sheet of rain washes Baelen’s blood from the stone.

No, this can’t be… Sobs tear out of me, racking my body. I fight it with everything I have, kicking and struggling, not wanting it to be true.

This is not an ordinary storm. This is… the Storm.

I am the new Storm Princess.