Bonded in Shadows |Fourth Wing|

Bonded in Shadows

Rain has a way of remembering things long after people try to forget them.

It remembers blood.

It remembers screams.

It remembers the way childhood shatters when steel meets flesh.

The storm rolled in hours before the slaughter, black clouds stacking like the wrath of the gods over Aretia. Thunder cracked over the valley in sharp, splitting booms, as though the sky itself was warning them of what was coming. The wind howled through the stone keep, rattling banners that bore the rebellion's crest, tugging at the heavy oak doors, slipping through every crack like a living thing searching for someone to claim.

Nova Blackthorne did not sleep.

She rarely did on nights like this.

At fifteen, she was already too aware, too sharp, too observant, too tuned to the tension that hung in the air like a drawn blade. She sat at her bedroom window, knees pulled to her chest, dark hair loose around her shoulders, eyes fixed on the lightning that spiderwebbed across the sky.

A candle flickered on her desk beside a worn journal, its pages filled with neat, careful handwriting, observations, battle strategies she'd overheard, sketches of dragons in flight, lists of training she pushed herself through in secret. Her parents didn't know she practiced with a dagger behind the stables. They didn't know she climbed the walls at dawn to build her endurance. They didn't know that, even at fifteen, she was already preparing for a war she had been born into.

A soft knock came at her door.

"Nova?" her mother's voice called gently. Seraphine Blackthorne, elegant, unyielding, and far stronger than most people ever realized. "You should be asleep."

Nova turned her head but didn't answer right away. The thunder boomed again, louder this time, close enough that the floor trembled.

"I can't," Nova finally replied.

The door opened, and her mother stepped inside, wrapping her shawl tighter around her shoulders. She crossed the room and sat at the edge of the bed, brushing a strand of Nova's hair back from her face.

"You look like your father when you're like this," Seraphine said quietly. "Eyes too wide. Mind running too fast."

Nova didn't look away from the storm, but her shoulders shifted at the sound of her mother's voice, softer now, stripped of command, stripped of the composure she wore like armor in front of everyone else. In this small, candle-lit room, Seraphine was not a leader of the rebellion. She was simply a mother sitting on the edge of her child's bed, close enough that Nova could feel the warmth of her presence.

The candle on the desk flickered, throwing trembling light across Seraphine's face catching on the fine lines at the corners of her eyes, illuminating the gentle curve of her mouth. Her dark hair, usually pinned perfectly, had loosened around her shoulders, and for once, she looked tired in a way she never allowed anyone else to see.

Nova's lips twitched at the comparison, an instinctive reaction born from years of hearing it, but there was no humor behind it. The smile never fully formed. Instead, it faded into something thinner, something weighed down by the storm outside and the storm building in her chest.

Rain hammered against the window in uneven bursts, as if the sky itself couldn't decide whether to weep or rage.

"Do you think they'll come?" Nova asked.

The question hung between them, heavy and unavoidable, like the low roll of distant thunder. It wasn't childish. It wasn't naïve. It was the question of someone who had grown up hearing whispers of war at dinner tables, who had watched her parents prepare for the worst since she could remember.