Chapter 56 56. Chapter
Aurora
We stood at the highest point of the House, on a wide stone terrace with carved edges, directly above the swamp. The fog did not just rest on the ground here. It climbed the walls like slow, twisting snakes. The air tasted metallic and electric. Elijah stood a few steps away from me, his shirt sleeves rolled up. The veins on his arms pulsed darkly under his pale skin.
“The wind is not something you can grab, Aurora,” he said. His voice was almost swallowed by distant thunder. “Hunters treat magic like an order. They recite words, perform rituals, and force the elements into limits. But inside you, something else is happening. Your magic does not come from rules. It comes from your blood.”
“But I do not know how to call it on purpose,” I replied, staring helplessly at my palm. Now that I was no longer in immediate danger, that elemental force which had torn the Devourers apart in the basement was silent again. I felt like a traveler lost in a desert who knows there is water under the ground but has no tool to reach it.
“That is because you are still trying to control it like a Hunter,” Elijah said as he stepped behind me and placed his hands over mine. His skin was ice cold, yet the energy flowing from him almost burned. “Do not try to command it. Do not try to force it. Be the wind. Feel the pressure on your skin. Feel the House breathing.”
I closed my eyes. At first, I heard only the distant, dull sounds of the swamp. But as Elijah’s grip tightened around my hands, and I felt his endless patience and dark power through the bond between us, something shifted. The silence broke apart. I began to hear air currents sliding along the roof. I heard clouds colliding high above us.
“There it is,” Elijah whispered into my ear. “Call it to you.”
I opened my eyes and pointed into the distance. I wanted the fog to move. I focused, tensed my muscles, and tried to force the feeling back. Nothing happened. The fog continued to drift lazily. Frustration burned inside me. Am I broken again? The thought struck hard. Was the basement just a moment of madness?
Elijah felt my doubt. He suddenly released my hands and, in one swift motion, drew his dagger. Before I could react, the blade flashed and cut a thin line across my palm.
“What are you doing?” I gasped, pulling my hand back as pain pulsed through it.
“Pain and blood clear the sight,” he replied coldly, though something sharp and excited glittered in his eyes. “Look at your blood. Feel how your nature reacts to the insult. Use that anger.”
I stared at the dark red drops spilling from my palm. The anger was there. A lifetime of being controlled, humiliated, and alone, and now this wound, all of it collapsed into a single burning point. Something cold twisted in my stomach, then exploded outward.
The storm came from nothing.
It was not a gentle breeze. A sharp, screaming blast of wind burst out of me and slammed into the stone railing of the terrace with such force that the heavy rock cracked. The fog above the swamp was torn apart within seconds, and a massive funnel began to form above the House.
“That is it!” Elijah shouted, but his voice already sounded far away.
I felt my feet lift from the ground. The wind was no longer around me. I was inside it. My hair whipped across my face, my lungs filled with the taste of the storm. There was power, but also something terrifying. The force did not want to stop. It felt like I had broken a dam, and the water now wanted to drag me with it.
The heavy stone statues along the terrace began to shake. I heard glass cracking in the windows below us.
“Aurora, stop it!” Elijah’s voice cut through the chaos, sharp and urgent. “Control it or it will tear the House apart!”
I tried to pull the power back, but it was like trying to stop a charging horse with bare hands. Panic rose in me, and the wind grew wilder. One of the terrace pillars snapped with a loud crack.
“I cannot!” I screamed, and the hurricane swallowed my voice.
Then Elijah did something I did not expect. He did not retreat. He threw himself straight into the heart of the storm. He pushed through the wall of wind that shredded his shirt into pieces and grabbed my shoulders. He pulled me to him with such force that all the air was driven from my lungs. Our eyes locked. His were not red. They were deep, endless black.
“Listen to me,” he thundered, and through our bond he pushed a mental barrier toward me that stopped the flow of panic inside my mind. “I am your anchor. Hold on to me.”
With the power that only a Ruler could command, he smothered the magic pouring out of me. It felt like a massive blanket thrown over fire. The wind died suddenly with one final, heavy sigh.
The silence that followed almost hurt. I would have collapsed if Elijah had not held me. My legs shook violently, and the wound on my palm was already nearly healed.
“That was too much,” I breathed, pressing my forehead against his chest.
Elijah was breathing hard, his face covered in sweat. “It was not too much. You just did not wait for your body to adapt. But look,” he said, gesturing around us.
The terrace was in ruins. Stones were shattered, and the fog had retreated for miles. The dark surface of the swamp reflected the moonlight clearly.
“With a single movement, you could have destroyed half the House,” Elijah whispered. There was no fear in his voice, only open, honest respect. “In the Clan, everyone controls one element. But you do not just move the wind, Aurora. You are the storm. Something inside you has changed forever.”
I looked down at my hands. They were still tingling. I felt Elijah searching for answers, just as I was. Neither of us spoke the word, but we both knew. What happened here was beyond every law the Hunters believed in.
“I need to learn control,” I said firmly. “Because when the Clan comes next time, I do not want to destroy half the world. Just them.”
Elijah wrapped an arm around me, and together we stared into the dark night. “You will learn,” he said quietly. “But know this, Aurora. Tonight, the world felt this. Something was born, and there is no cure for it.”