THE UNBROKEN

Elena floated.

There was no floor. No sky.

Only silence.

Only darkness.

Not the soft kind that soothed weary eyes, but a viscous dark. Thick, wet, eternal. The kind that swallowed sound and thought and self.

She didn't need to see it to know it was the void.

She knew where she was.

Suspended between life and death.

Held by neither.

Her limbs felt weightless, drifting like bone in black water. She blinked again and again, but nothing changed. Still the dark. Still the endless, endless dark.

Then- she remembered.

The beach.

The blast.

Esperanza screaming.

Niegal falling.

The smell of burned skin. Her child's body convulsing beneath her hands. Her own blood soaking the sand. Her heart… shattered.

She reached toward her chest, searching for the warm thrum of her magic.

Nothing.

She pressed a hand to her scars. The pearlescent lines that once pulsed with divine stormlight were cold now. Just skin. Just remnants.

Elena choked on a breath.

She couldn't feel Esperanza.

She couldn't feel Niegal.

She couldn't feel the gods.

Just her.

Her, alone.

Her, blind.

Her, dead inside.

And so…

She screamed.

A primal, soul-cracking scream that echoed forever. She flailed in the void, scratching at her skin, tearing her hair, her nails scraping open old wounds just to feel something.

"WHERE ARE YOU?!" she shrieked.

"GUABANCEX! NIEGAL! SOMEONE- ANSWER ME!"

Nothing.

Only the echo of her agony.

Tears streamed down her cheeks, floating in slow spirals around her in the weightless dark. Her sobs turned to laughter. Wild, broken laughter. The kind that made you question if she'd ever come back again.

Elena screamed until her throat gave out.

Until her fingers bled.

Until her soul cracked at the edges.

And then-

Warmth.

Faint. Distant.

Starting at her chest… no- her shoulder. The wound.

It was closing.

She gasped, blinking rapidly. Light didn't return. Her vision stayed dim, smeared shadows and blotches of deeper black. But the pain in her shoulder was dulling, her pulse stabilizing. Something was shifting.

Something was reaching for her.

Then-

A voice.

Not thunder. Not divine.

Soft. Womanly. Worn.

"This is my last gift to you…

Now, LIVE."

Elena fell.

Her body plummeted back to the world, pulled downward like a stone through water, spiraling-

Until-

She gasped.

A shuddering, ragged, animal gasp.

She sat upright in panic, hands outstretched into the darkness. Her heart raced. Her eyes still gave her nothing but blackness.

Then gentle hands eased her back.

"Shh," a voice whispered. "Shhh, mija. Rest. Rest to fight another day."

Elena froze.

She knew that voice.

The scent of sage and rosemary drifted through the air. She inhaled sharply. Sweetgeass, ash, healing salts.

"…La Señora Behike," she whispered.

Her voice cracked.

Tears welled again, this time in relief and horror all at once.

She tried to summon a spark, just one, to light her fingertips, to feel herself.

But there was nothing.

No magic. No mana. No storm.

Her hands were just hands now.

She clenched her fists, furious.

"So what," she snarled, "you going to turn us in to the Inquisition again? Sell us to the Church for your own safety?"

The Behike said nothing at first, just dabbed her scorched brow with cool, herb-wrapped cloths.

Finally, she murmured, "I did not betray you, child. I led them away… so you could escape."

Elena shook her head, eyes burning despite the dark. "I don't believe you. Not after what you let them do. Not after what they-"

"Esperanza," the Behike interrupted softly, "is alive."

The world stopped.

"She's healing. Sleeping." Her voice thickened. "She's beside you now."

Elena reached blindly. Her fingers met something small and warm and wrapped in bandages.

A tiny hand clasped hers.

She broke.

Tears spilled anew. She pressed the child's hand to her face, sobbing. "My baby… mi amor, I thought I lost you…"

The Behike rested a hand on her shoulder.

Elena's voice trembled. "Then why can't I feel her? Why can't I feel anything? Where the hell is Niegal?"

A long silence.

The Behike sighed. She brushed singed curls away from Elena's temples.

"The power you held… the storm within? It's gone."

She paused, taking a breath heavy with regret.

"And Niegal… is in the hands of the Inquisition."

Elena's breath hitched.

"He…" The Behike lowered her gaze. "He will not last much longer."

Elena screamed again, but this time no sound came.

She curled around her daughter's frail frame, lips trembling against the child's skin. Her body shook. Her soul wept.

The Behike held her hand as she cried, whispering old lullabies from the coast, ancient prayers of mercy for the dying and the nearly dead.

Outside the hut, whispers passed through the dusk.

The Lion and the Storm have fallen.

The gods who walked among us, broken.

In the smoky candlelight, children of the rebellion wept, huddled in cloaks, afraid to look at one another.

Some murmured of vengeance.

Others of resurrection.

But for now-

Grief ruled the night.

And a hawk was loosed at dawn.

Marisiana would soon know.

And the world would answer.