The trip Downhill was easier than it had been Uphill. No one checked her credentials, and indeed, the guards did very little to verify who she was at all, besides a few choice glances at her backside. She kept the silk-wrapped Stormclap board clutched tightly to her chest and half jogged back home, her path a maze of endless staircases shrouded in swirling fog.

An hour later, Kess sat in her barren apartment, the Stormclap board lined up carefully on her pocked and marked table, smooth with age. The quality and craftsmanship of the game seemed at odds with the less handsome wood beneath it.

Kess twirled one of the towers in her hand as she sat on the floor, barefoot, and listened to the Drystorm wind rattle and vibrate her small home. In other homes, she’d been worried about the gales that sometimes flattened homes out of existence— Gasps, the Downhill called them. Here, she’d paid for sturdier beams, though that pay didn’t seem to extend to extra room in the home. It was a far cry from what her life Uphill had been, but there was tranquility in simplicity.

No glaring lights, she thought. No extravagance, no people, and no expectations. Just…silence. Silence, simplicity, and…her Fulminancy. Kess stared at that board for a very long time, the rubies of the game board pieces twinkling incriminatingly in the low light.

In Hillcrest, Fulminancy was everything. Even the more fortunate Duds were doomed to live their lives surrounded by powers that were far more likely to result in death than fame, at least to Kess’s way of thinking. And yet life continued.

Men and women fought with Fulminancy for fame and glory, but they also healed with it. Fulminancy was so well-versed at mapping out the human nervous system that it was quite common for paralyzed people to walk again, with the right treatments. Even the storms that constantly threatened Hillcrest in a cycle of tempest, rain, and lightning were said to be weaker from the hard work and research of a few Fulminancers. Even now, that damnable Uphill man used Fulminancy for light of all things. Hillcrest had long ago learned to adapt to Fulminancy, so why couldn’t she?

She snapped another piece to the board, thinking. She tried to imagine that crackling lightning running through her body again, raw with untamed potential. Instead, all she could hear were her own screams. She flinched, nearly dropping another piece onto the board.

And that was when she realized something— her Fulminancy wasn’t going away. Fulminancy would continue to haunt her, even if she managed to leave Hillcrest. It would follow her into the mountains, a phantom as real as the one who followed her through the city if she didn’t learn to master it. Oliver’s presence would complicate things, though she was glad to have him along— his safety was one more thing she risked if she refused to learn it.

Sighing, Kess turned towards the board. Maybe, like Oliver said, she could use it to hone some control. It had been years since Kess had even bothered to bring that power to the surface, though it was a lie to say it was gone entirely. She could still feel it crawling beneath her skin, like a beast prowling just below the surface of the water, waiting for an opportune moment. If she could control it, then perhaps she wouldn’t need to leave Hillcrest at all. Maybe the city would have another life left to offer her.

She placed a single, trembling finger over one of the pegs on the board. Her heart pounded in her ears, harsh and loud against the soothing noises of wood creaking. Warmth crept into her chilled hands, and a sort of low vibration. Slowly, a white-blue glow surrounded her fingers, and that harsh, crackling lightning emerged.

Kess gasped, fighting not to scramble back as that power emerged. Her stomach churned as she tried to hold it back, but it continued forward all the same. It crackled between pegs, lighting up each on the board in turn, then spread from there, snapping into the walls and the furniture.

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That did make Kess move. She flipped the board in her haste, and the pegs snapped away like shrapnel, embedding themselves in the wood nearby. A few cracked towards Kess, and she ducked behind a chair. She yelped as one bit into her cheek anyway.

Board blown apart, her Fulminancy looked for new targets and found it in the beams of the house. Wood began to crack and smoke, and the beams overhead groaned. Panicking, Kess made her way to the door, trying to think of a way to stop it.

She forced her fist closed, willing it to go away, but the Fulminancy paid no mind. There has to be a way to stop it, she thought. Everyone else manages it, so why can’t I?

Another piece of wood cracked as power slammed against it, insistent. This had always been the problem with Kess’s Fulminancy— there was no way to stop it reliably. Tricks that worked with other Fulminancers failed to make a dent in her own gulf of power that now threatened to destroy her entire home.

And there was that other problem.

Sometimes Fulminancy exploded.

As if from a dream, Kess remembered that parlor from a week ago. They hadn’t even found the charred corpses of the men and women inside, the destruction had been so complete.

By the light of her Fulminancy crackling around her, Kess stuffed her few belongings into a bag and darted out of the front door as the snaps and pops of her powers grew louder and more insistent.

No sooner than she was out the front door did a particularly deep thump ensue, and her Fulminancy snapped up into the sky through the roof. A whump of air and a hot blast knocked her into the streets. Wooden shrapnel followed, and Kess ducked behind a storm shelter across the street as the remnants of her home pelted the reinforced wall.

Her Fulminancy left, a warmth that crept out of her hands and core, leaving her shaking and shivering from its absence. Tentatively, she leaned around the storm shelter, bag dangling awkwardly from her shoulder. Warmth crept down her cheek.

Several of her neighbors poked their heads out, surveying the damage. A few muttered something about a rogue Lightstorm, but the sharper ones turned eyes towards Kess, crouched behind the wooden barrier. Those would go to the Witchblades, of course, if they weren’t already on their way. Perhaps Fulminancy was legal Downhill, but that didn’t mean that residents wanted a rogue Fulminancer living on their doorstep.

Kess’s home hadn’t fared well— or at all, really. There was nothing left but a smoldering, charred ruin, the embers crackling up to the sky and shifting away in waves with the Drystorm winds. Kess gripped the side of the shelter with white knuckles.

Her instincts had been right years ago. Fulminancy meant death— both for herself and anyone close to her. She shook her head, surveying the smoldering wreck. If I take Oliver I subject him to this, she thought. I put him at risk, and for what? As much as she wanted her brother with her, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t put her only family at risk with her powers. She would have to leave him behind, even though it tore her in half to consider it.

Something crashed in the ruins— the sturdy wooden beams she had paid extra for twisted into pieces in the fire, their fall sending up a fresh plume of hot ash and flame. In that flame, Kess felt just a tiny ember spark within her.

Perhaps she was too destructive to live a life in Hillcrest, but she would win tomorrow— if nothing else, so she could be rid of these responsibilities for good. Fulminancy would have a hard time with nothing to destroy but Kess.

When her neighbors’ glares got to be too much, Kess took one final look at her home and walked into the night.