The sky remained dark, and the first rain drops began to fall. Lightning continued its assault while thunder rolled across the city.

  "Come, Clive." Joshua's voice cut through the ambient roar. "We should get indoors."

  They navigated through the wreckage of the courtyard, stepping over fractured marble and scorched timbers. The rain intensified with each step, drumming against the debris. By the time they reached the Arcanum's main building, it had become a full-blown storm.

  The interior offered immediate relief. The temperature rose several degrees once they crossed the threshold, and the sound of rain became muffled. Joshua muttered an incantation and a heat wave washed over them, drying their clothes.

  He led them to an intimate lounge room where leather chairs faced a warm fireplace. Bookshelves lined two walls while a single window looked out into the storm.

  Joshua moved to a sideboard and retrieved a tea service. He filled a kettle from a pitcher, then held his palm beneath it. Fire bloomed between his fingers. The water began to steam.

  "Tea will be ready shortly." He produced a wooden box from a drawer, opening it to reveal neat rows of cigars. "Would you care for one?"

  Clive raised a hand. "I don't smoke."

  "Wise." Joshua selected one for himself. He lit it with a tiny lance of flame that sprouted from his fingertip like a candle. The tobacco caught, glowed orange, and filled the room with smoke. Then, he settled into one of the chairs and gestured for Clive to do the same.

  Clive took the opposite seat. His body still twitched at random intervals. The paralysis had worn off, but his nervous system remembered the violation. They sat in silence. Rain against glass. Thunder in the distance.

  "So tell me about this Thunder God Sid,” Clive finally said. “It sounded like there was quite a bit of history between you two."

  Joshua paused mid-draw. The cigar remained at his lips for a moment longer than necessary. When he finally exhaled, it was slow and deliberate.

  "Sayid's parents were defectors from Vandiel," Joshua said. "They sneaked across the border in search of a better life. Vandiel was... is... brutal to its lower classes. If you weren't born with magic or nobility, you were fuel for the empire's ambitions. Expendable. His parents understood this, so they fled."

  He paused to ash his cigar into a small tray beside his chair.

  "Life in Marblehaven wasn't the sanctuary they'd hoped for. Vandiel defectors weren't exactly welcomed with open arms. Too many feared they were spies. Too many resented them for taking jobs, space, resources. His parents found work where they could. Manual labor, mostly. Cleaning, hauling, the kind of work that breaks your body for copper coins."

  The kettle whistled. Joshua rose, poured two cups, and offered one to Clive before returning to his seat. The tea was black, with a bitter aroma. He sipped it anyway.

  "Sayid was young then. Eight, maybe nine. Smart kid. Quick with numbers, quicker with his tongue. He changed his name from Al Sayid to just Sid, thought it would help him blend in, make him sound less foreign. It didn't work. Children are crueler than adults in some ways. They don't hide their prejudice behind polite words."

  Joshua's expression remained neutral, but something in his eyes suggested he was seeing the past more clearly than the present.

  "His parents worked themselves to exhaustion. His father developed lung problems from the quarries. His mother's hands were gnarled from textile work. They couldn't keep up anymore, couldn't compete with younger, healthier workers. And when you can't work..."

  He trailed off but he didn't need to finish. Clive had heard stories like this often enough to understand what happened. It happened in his world as well. Migrant workers cross the border in hope of a better life. But when they fell sick, no work meant no money, and no money meant slow starvation.

  "Sayid watched them waste away. Watched them apologize for being burdens, for failing to provide. He was twelve when they died. Both of them, within weeks of each other, as if they'd made a pact not to leave the other behind."

  Rain hammered against the window with renewed intensity. Lightning flashed, followed almost immediately by thunder.

  "Something broke in him that day. Or maybe something awakened. Grief has a way of igniting what was always there, waiting for fuel. He let out an electrical storm that destroyed his entire block."

  Clive's cup stopped halfway to his lips. "An entire block?"

  "Reduced to rubble. Every building where he'd faced discrimination, every shop that refused to serve his family, every home that belonged to someone who'd mocked them. It wasn't random destruction. It was judgment."

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Joshua tapped ash from his cigar again, though none had accumulated.

  "Seventeen dead. Dozens injured. The city guard tried to apprehend him, but what do you do against a child who can call lightning from clear skies? Sayid burned through them like paper."

  "And that's when the Arcanum noticed him," Clive said.

  "Yes." Joshua put on a resigned smile. "Hard not to notice an electrical apocalypse tearing through your city. I was the one who found him, actually. I was just a trainee then, a third-class mage, barely older than him. He was sitting in the ruins of what used to be his family's house, surrounded by bodies, guards who'd tried to subdue him."

  Another pause. Another draw from the cigar.

  "I should have killed him. That's what protocol demanded. What the city guard expected. I should have treated him as a threat to be eliminated."

  "But you didn't, and I wouldn’t have either. He was just a child.” Clive could sense where this story was going. It was clear the Archmage held some sort of regret and blamed himself. It was the least Clive could do to reassure him.

  "You’re right. I didn't." Joshua met Clive's eyes for the first time since starting the story. "I saw something in him. Potential, maybe. Or perhaps I just recognized the look of someone who'd lost everything and found power in the void it left behind. I convinced the Arcanum to take him in. Argued that his talent was too valuable to waste, that he could be taught control, that he could become an asset instead of a threat."

  "Looks like you were right. He was strong. Very strong. Easily the toughest I’ve faced so far."

  Joshua let out a soft chuckle. "Yes, he was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Within five years, he became a first-class mage. Within ten, he'd mastered lightning manipulation beyond what most mages achieved in a lifetime. He could split a single bolt into a dozen smaller strikes, could call down storms with a thought, could transform himself into pure electricity to travel instantaneously. Do you understand how complex that is? To convert your physical form into energy, maintain consciousness during the transition, and reconstitute yourself exactly as you were?”

  Clive thought of the moment Sayid had done exactly that. "It looked impossible."

  "It should be impossible. The human body isn't meant to exist as electrical current. The pain alone would break most minds. But Sayid learned to do it as easily as you or I might take a step. That's the kind of talent we're discussing. We started calling him the Thunder God Sid. He became a hero of sorts, the orphan who rose from tragedy to greatness. People loved that story. They loved him."

  Lightning flashed outside. The storm seemed to be getting worse.

  "Sayid played the part well," Joshua continued. "Attended the ceremonies, gave speeches about perseverance and dedication, mentored younger students. On the surface, he seemed to have found peace. Purpose. But I knew him better than most. The anger never left. Years passed. Sayid's reputation grew. His power grew. And then...”

  "What happened then? What caused him to have all this hatred for Marblehaven?"

  Joshua's expression darkened. His cigar had gone out. He didn't bother relighting it. He stood up and moved to the window, pressing one palm against the glass.

  “Everyone thought he would become the next Archmage. Even myself. He was the most talented of us…. But fate has a strange way of working. For one reason or another, the phoenix chose me to be the Archmage. I never asked for it. Never wanted it, to be honest. Sayid was the obvious choice. The right choice. But the phoenix chose me anyway, and who are we to question divine will?”

  Clive could already imagine how this story would end, but he wanted to hear it regardless. “How did Sayid take it?”

  “How do you think? The man who'd dedicated everything to the Arcanum, who'd risen from nothing, who'd proven himself time and time again, passed over for someone with less raw power. He went insane. Convinced the Arcanum had discriminated against him because of his birth. Tried to destroy everything… I had to stop him. It took the entire Seventh Circle to defeat him. But we did. We should have finished him off, but he escaped and we never saw him again.”

  “Until now…” Clive added.

  "It appears Sid has not forgotten and is back for vengeance. But this time, he's not acting alone. Those whispers in the wind, the way he referred to 'the plan'—he's working with someone. Multiple someones, perhaps."

  A sharp knock interrupted them. The door swung open to reveal a mage in rain-soaked robes, water dripping onto the floor. His face was pale, eyes wide with concern.

  "Archmage Joshua." The man bowed quickly. "There is something strange about the storm outside."

  Joshua's expression sharpened. "How so?"

  "Our thunder mages have been analyzing it. The storm, it's enchanted. Artificially sustained. The electrical charges aren't dissipating naturally, they're being fed by some external source.

  "How long until it passes?"

  The mage's silence was answer enough. Finally, he said, "Our thunder mages say it won't end. Not without intervention. It could rage for days, weeks even. The entire city will be uninhabitable if it continues."

  Joshua was already moving toward the door. "Show me."

  Clive stood and followed. If Sayid had left them a parting gift, Clive wanted to see it.

  Outside, lightning struck with metronomic regularity, once every ten seconds, each bolt finding a target within the city. In the distance, Clive could see buildings burning despite the rain.

  "This could be troublesome," the Archmage said.

  Other mages had gathered, their faces turned skyward, hands raised as they tested the storm with probing spells that dissipated uselessly into the chaos.

  Clive watched the lightning for several moments. It was devastating, but lightning storms had long been solved by modern engineering back on Earth. With the principles of electrical grounding, entire buildings could be protected with proper conductors.

  "I know what to do," Clive said.

  Joshua turned to him, rain streaming down his face. "You know how to stop this?"

  Clive looked up at the roiling clouds, at the lightning that flashed within them like neurons firing in an angry god's brain.

  "We need to build a lightning rod."

  They say lightning never strikes the same place twice. They're wrong. Lightning remembers. It calculates the path of least resistance, maps the conductive channels left behind by previous strikes, and returns to scar the same ground again and again. Some grudges aren't metaphors—they're physics.

  But here's what they don't tell you: the path of least resistance can be changed. Redirect the current, offer it something more conductive, more willing to accept the charge, and even the most vengeful bolt will abandon its target. Lightning doesn't care about justice or revenge. It only cares about where it can flow.

  —From "Principles of Conductive Magic," a collaborative work by Archmage Joshua Blackfire and Pictomancer Clive Weston