Elwyn Elder rounds me and grabs me from behind, latching on to my armor and dragging me off Baelen. My skintight suit presses against my neck like a noose. He drags me across the floor, past the broken chairs to a clear space beyond them, and drops me onto my back.

I can’t move. The sorcery is like fire burning me and immobilizing my spine. Gideon Glory comes into view, leaning over me. So do Pedr Bounty and Osian Valor. The four Elven Commanders peer down at me while Gideon mutters beneath his breath, chanting over me. The other three raise a hand each and a golden thread extends between their palms, connecting into a circle when Gideon raises his too.

In unison, their hands lower toward me, one each toward my bare hands and my bare cheeks, lowering at exactly the same time.

They want my power. They all want my power. They wanted Baelen to die. They wanted the chance to kill him. They… I… my heart is… so torn I can’t do anything but scream my grief. “You did this!”

They don’t respond. Gideon’s chanting grows more urgent and all four of their lined old faces begin to glow as the sorcery keeps them joined, moving them as one hand, closer and closer to the surface of my body. I scream, shouting at them, but there’s nothing I can do to stop them. How long had they planned this? How long had they schemed? There’s a dagger at Gideon Glory’s hip but I can’t move my hand to reach it. They’re going to take my power and then… they’ll kill me.

Closer and closer.

I whimper as their hands touch my bare skin, connecting at exactly the same moment.

“Finally,” Gideon Glory exhales a sigh of sickening elation. Triumphant smiles break across all their faces, but I…

I feel nothing.

There’s no surge of energy, no crackle of lightning, no pulse of thunder, nothing of the storm passes from me. It’s like being empty but not because they took my power—because it’s not there to give.

I become very quiet, sensing… a heartbeat. It’s slow. Very slow, almost like the sound of someone taking careful, cautious steps toward me except that there’s nobody approaching me. I don’t know where the heartbeat is coming from or who it belongs to. All I know is that it isn’t mine and it doesn’t belong to the four Commanders whose evil grins are fading fast.

Their fingers claw into my skin, pressing deeper, frustration replacing their triumph.

“What’s going on?” Elwyn Elder demands, a glare forming fast.

Gideon shakes his head, filled with confusion. “I don’t understand… we should have her power by now.”

“You said this would work!”

They argue back and forth, yanking on my arms, clawing at my cheeks, and I begin to laugh despite the pain, great big sob-laughs. Mostly because I’ve lost it, I’ve lost everything, but also because… “It didn’t work.”

Gideon Glory hisses at me, snarling a chant, his eyes glowing like golden orbs, but his sorcery washes over me like water off a swan’s wings. At the back of everything, that slow, quiet heartbeat thrums and it’s turning into a shield around me. The Elven Command has taken everything from me—they took Bae and now I’ll never see his smile or hear him laugh or hold his hand or join my body with his. There’s nothing more they can do to hurt me.

Gideon’s hold on my spine weakens. He chants harder, but his power is fading fast. I kick my legs, freeing one of them from the spell, and strike out at Osian Valor on my right hand side. He shouts as my armored foot cracks against his ribs, knocking him off balance. He tries to keep hold of my hand, but falls to the floor. My hand is scratched and bruised from his raking fingernails, but it’s free now. As quickly as I can, I grab hold of the dagger dangling so recklessly from Gideon’s belt right beside me as he leans over me. Oh, the arrogance that he never thought I’d be able to reach for it.

He shrieks as my hand lights up on contact, struggling to get away from me, but I hook my fingers around his belt and press the sizzling dagger into his side. I whisper, “You killed Mai. You killed Bae. You are nothing but evil.”

He leaps to his feet but I follow him up and so does the dagger, finding its target. His eyes fade. The only light cast over his body radiates from the storm I wield.

As he falls, dead, I spin to the remaining three, finally in a position to see that Teilo Splendor lies across the far dais in a rumple of robes. I don’t know what happened while I was in the simulation, but Teilo’s head wound tells me he tried to stop the others.

I’m suddenly cold as the adrenalin of escaping Gideon’s sorcery wanes. I can’t bear to look where Baelen lies. I drop to my knees, only knowing that I have to end this. If I’m the first Princess to wield the storm as a weapon then I’m determined to make myself the last.

“You want the storm,” I say as the three remaining Commanders scoot away from me. “Then you can have it.”

I lift the bright dagger to my own heart, “Be free, Storm.”

Before I can drive the blade home, a thud freezes everything around me. The dagger pauses at my chest, its tip refusing to budge. I’m not responsible for the pause in time. There’s not a lot I can think about right now but I know it wasn’t me who froze everything.

The three remaining Elven Commanders are caught between expressions of fear and rage, their glittering robes frozen in swirls as they scrambled to get away from me. My friends are frozen too, some half rising, some on their knees.

I finally see Jasper and Sebastian both stationary but in the act of running toward Baelen, with Sahara right behind them. They don’t look harmed like the others and their voices echo in my memory like a dream that happened around me while I was unaware. Get back! The Storm is too strong! And lastly Sahara shouting: Take cover! We can’t help him if we’re dead.

A drop of water hits my cheek, drawing my attention upward. A cool breeze swirls around me, creating soothing sensations across my scratched skin. I’m not sure where it’s coming from until a soft female voice speaks behind me.

“I’m here, Marbella.”

I freeze like the people around me but not because the thunder has affected me. I know her voice. Sure, the last time I heard it she was wailing and shrieking, but there’s no denying the lilt she speaks with, the gentle rush of sound like a waterfall lives beneath each spoken sound. I stand and turn slowly.

She’s just like an older version of the gargoyle baby I saw in the nest. Her skin is porcelain in texture and a soft caramel color; her eyes are deep brown and framed with long dark lashes; her hair rests across one shoulder and washes down her side to her slender hips and the longest legs I’ve ever seen only partially covered by the fine silver gown she wears. Her ears are round, not like mine, and she glows around the edges. Her wings shimmer in a cascade like her voice, except that… I frown… one is broken, the fine gossamer webbing torn and draping closer to her body on her left side.

“You’re the Storm,” I say, even though it’s stating the obvious.

“We are the Storm,” she corrects me, her mouth drawing into a serious line. “You, me, and… him.”

I follow the line of her arm and pointed finger, sucking in a sharp breath and spinning back to her before I see Baelen.

“Come with me,” she says, gliding past me in his direction, not quite touching ground.

“No.”

She pauses. “Why are you afraid of him?”

I choke. “I’m not afraid of him. I can’t look at him because if I don’t… I can pretend he’s not… gone.” I gasp against the pain clawing up through my stomach into my chest. I didn’t think there was enough of my heart left to break any further, but pieces are tearing out of me one by one.

She pauses beside me, her dress swishing around her legs. “But… he’s not dead.”

Now I’m truly frozen. My heart leaps as everything else stops. “What?”

“Close your eyes, Marbella. Listen. Tell me what you hear.”

I don’t have to close my eyes to know what she’s talking about. “I hear a heartbeat.”

“And what do you feel in every part of this room?”

“Thunder.”

“Well,” she says with a gentle quirk of her eyebrow. “It’s not my heartbeat and I didn’t cause the thunder. Neither did you so…”

“Baelen!” I’m moving before I know it, racing past the Storm, and zigzagging through the frozen people. I skid and drop to my knees at his side. I swill my hands across his face and neck, still afraid to touch him, but close enough to sense… he’s warm.

My heart can’t take any more pain. “I don’t understand. You said he’s the storm too. How?”

“The Elven Command was right about you being able to share your power. But they were completely wrong about the timing. They couldn’t take your power just now because you already gave it away.”

She gives me a smile, but it’s a sad one. “On the night you became the Storm Princess, you gave your power to Baelen Rath.”