THE UNBROKEN

"¡ESPERANZA!"

Elena shot up from a dead sleep, breath ragged, her palms alight with crackling violet magic. The sigil across her chest, the triple spiral, blazed gold and red, pulsing in rhythm with her panic.

Outside, waves slammed against the sides of the vessel, their mana-forged hull holding steady in the brewing storm. Lanterns swung on hooks overhead, casting flickering light through the cramped sleeping quarters.

Niegal was already awake.

He hadn't been sleeping much these days. The visions were worsening. More vivid, more symbolic. A lion roaring in a ruined temple. Flames licking at a pyre. A black-maned beast pacing just out of reach.

But in the moment Elena screamed, all of that fell away.

"Calmate, calmate, mi Doña. I've got you, I got you…"

He was at her side in seconds, wrapping strong arms around her trembling form. She leaned into him, her body still seizing with electric aftershocks. Her breath came fast, her voice hoarse from something deeper than fear.

"She was calling for me," she choked out, "for us. I heard it, mi León—I heard her. She sounded confused, scared…"

Niegal's jaw clenched.

"I saw it," Elena continued, turning her tear-streaked face toward his. "The mana car that took her. It bore the Crest of House Matteo."

Niegal went still.

A slow, suffocating dread crept in behind his eyes, one that tasted like blood and betrayal.

Elena shook her head, curling into herself. "I thought maybe it was the cults. The ones calling me Stormbearer Queen. But this… our crest, Niegal. It was carved into the rear panel. Someone used our name to take her."

Thunder cracked just outside. The storm had followed them.

Niegal's arms wrapped tighter around her, one hand smoothing her curls back from her temple. His voice was low, controlled. But beneath it was the promise of fire.

"I don't care who did it," he said. "Distant blood, rogue nobles, cult fanatics. I don't care if they share my name or yours. If they've taken her…"

"They'll pay."

Elena pressed her forehead to his collarbone, still burning with aftershock, her magic flickering faintly across her skin. As she began to breathe evenly again, eyes fluttering closed against the storm's rhythm, she heard it.

A sound. Soft, deep, ancient.

It rumbled through Niegal's chest like a low growl.

The roar of a lion.

She gasped softly, head rising. Niegal hadn't spoken.

She looked up into his face.

His silver eyes were narrowed, steady. But something, something wild, gleamed behind them. And for a brief, bone-deep second, Elena saw not just the man, but the force he was tied to. The storm had chosen her. But the lion… the lion belonged to him.

They didn't sleep after that.

Wrapped in each other's arms, rocking with the ship's swaying frame, they held fast to the only anchor they had left: each other.

Outside, the sea churned with rage.

But ahead, across the salt-torn waters, they knew Veracchia waited.

A day behind. Perhaps two.

But they would arrive.

And when they did, the people who had taken their daughter would learn exactly what it meant to steal from the Storm and the Lion.