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I dropped my hands to my sides, and everything fell silent. The crowd held its breath. The sky was completely dark. On the air was the unmistakable scent of coming rain, something I’d managed to hold aloft this whole time. But once my show was over it was going to pour buckets.
I could only hold back nature for so long. Rain would eventually fall if it wanted to fall.
The audience was waiting, wondering if I was done. No one applauded. They just stared. Teddy had shut off the music, because what was the point of playing the 1812 Overture if no one could hear a single note?
I raised my head, and even from seven hundred feet back, people gasped.
When I channeled the storm, it showed in my eyes. While I couldn’t see what they saw, I knew what was happening. Flashes of lightning were coming from inside my pupils. A tiny storm trapped within me for all time.
Dramatically I lifted my hands over my head. I dropped my left arm first, and a huge fork of lightning hit the ground right next to me. It was so close the fabric of my dressed shuddered and the heat of it made my skin tingle.
A few people screamed.
I brought down my right arm and another bolt crashed on my opposite side, near enough I had to blink away stars. The screams turned into a rumbling of approval from the crowd that rivaled the thunderous thanks I was receiving from Seth.
One more.
I clasped my hands together, silently asking that the platform was really as strong as Teddy claimed it was, then whispered, “Okay.”
The bolt crashed into me, hitting me right in the top of my head. If the audience responded at all, I didn’t hear it. Everything turned white, blurring out the world around me. All sensations aside from light and pain were gone.
I knew a lot of people thought getting hit by lightning must be painless. One of those things that was such a shock to the system the brain shut down and didn’t let anything be felt. Like one minute you’re standing and a few minutes later you wake up wondering what happened.
There were a lot of days I wished that were true.
Instead, I felt it all.
It was like being plugged into a wall socket, and just when you think the power will be so intense it will obliterate you, fracture you into tiny specks of dust and atoms, you plug your other hand into a different wall socket.
The sensation of channeling lightning is like being the most alive you’ve ever felt while also feeling absolutely certain you will die at any second. It’s being torn apart to the root of your existence and reassembled from the ground up. I was exploded and glued back together, but the parts never fit the same as they had before.
I gritted my teeth and tried to steady my breath, but the lightning stole that away too.
I was reduced to a stuttering heartbeat. I no longer had limbs or skin. I was only my pulse and my pain. How could everything hurt this badly all at once? As I came back into myself, as my body rebuilt and the lightning passed through me, I wondered how I had any skin left.
I was an open wound. Everywhere the air touched me I wanted to scream and cry. My hands shook, and it took all my willpower not to stumble to my knees.
The first fat drops of rain started to come down around me because I no longer had the strength to keep them back. I was done.
The show was over.
One final boom of thunder shook the night sky, and it was so intense, so magnificent, it was as if Seth were speaking directly to everyone present. They felt it, how could they not?
After a long, drawn-out silence, the crowd positively exploded in applause.
The chorus of hoots and cheers was loud enough to cut through the ringing in my ears, and I steadied myself enough to open my eyes and glance up at them. A huge black circle had charred the ground around me. Little sparks of light continued to dance off my fingertips and even the end
s of my hair.
It hurt like a son of a bitch, but I bet it looked pretty cool.
I gave a shuddering sigh, almost a laugh, and lifted my hand in a wave.
The audience went ballistic.
In my whole life I’d never had people cheer like that for what I did. I felt… I felt special. I felt seen. I’d been a Rain Chaser since birth, I’d been with the temple since I was seven, and I’d been face-to-face with a god more times than I could count.
It wasn’t until right this second that I understood maybe this wasn’t a curse.
