“Jason!”

Jason jerked, burned himself, and cursed as he looked up to see who had burst into his forge.

It was Irra, the healer’s apprentice. The young woman was frazzled, and frightened. Her eyes were wild when they fixed on him.

“It’s Daramethe,” she said hurriedly before he could ask. Immediately he dropped his hammer and followed when she beckoned him. “She’s been struck by lightning- no one can get near enough to help her!”

“Where?” Jason demanded as adrenaline flooded him. Not his wife. Not Dara. “Where is she?!”

“On the cliffs. Jason-“

He took off at a run and whatever she might have said was lost behind him.

Thunder rolled overhead, as it did every summer, but this was different. The clouds flashed and roared, a sickly color of purple-green that Jason couldn’t see from inside, and which were a sure sign of something gone terribly wrong.

The cliffs were a far run, but Jason knew the way. It was Dara’s favorite place to meditate and practice her magic. The trail twisted and turned, and once he fell badly as his heavy boots caught a root.

Undeterred, he scrambled to his feet and kept running, with no time to let the burn in his lungs slow him down.

When he cleared the trees, it was to a scene of panic. Kellen, the healer, and their village hedge-witch Tier, spoke together in hushed tones.

Not that the tone mattered, as black lightning crashed down again and again and the ground quaked with the thunder that followed.

His wife knelt on the burned ground, screaming, hands buried in her black hair as lighting struck her over and over. Her dress glittered with sparks, and the ground burned into black glass around her.

Whatever sense of self-preservation Jason might have had evaporated at the sight of his beloved wife, screaming silently in the blaze of magic she couldn’t control.

He ran forward, and didn’t even feel when Kellen tried to stop him.

Dara would never hurt him. Even during their occasional fights, the worst that ever came was a shattered bowl.

Between bolts, he lunged forward and dragged Dara into his arms in a vain attempt to protect her. When the lightning cane again, it burned. Blisters raised on his shoulders where he took the brunt of the force, but he didn’t relent.

“Let me go!” Dara screamed, and tried to shove him away. Tiny silver bolts crackled away from her eyes like tears and Jason kissed them even as another bolt blasted through them both. “Let me go, let me go!”

“Never!” He yelled into her ear over the thunder. “I won’t let it take you!”

“Let me die!” she wailed brokenly, but her fingers tangled in his shirt. “I’m Cursed- you have to let it take me!”

“Never!” Jason yelled again, and buried a hand in her hair. “You’re not cursed! You’re my wife!”

“I’m the Twice-Struck,” she sobbed, and tried again to shove him away. With strength born from desperation and years as a smith, he held on. “I’m going to destroy everything- you have to kill me!”

“You’re my Dara,” Jason insisted, and cursed blackly when the lightning came again. He didn’t know if she was bringing it down on them, or if t was completely out of control. Maybe it didn’t matter. “I don’t care about anything but that. If you’re cursed, we’ll find a way to deal with it, but I will never kill you. Never.”

There seemed to be longer between lightning strikes now as his wife cried her pain into his shoulder and he held her close.

“When Lightning strikes Twice, so shall the Thunder come and blacken the Skies. Only the Sun will come, to hold back the Lightning Witch and her Evil.”

It was Tier, who had ventured near. He was afraid. His voice shook. Jason waved him away from he as the words brought a fresh flood of tears from Dara.

“You’re the Sun,” she choked out as he stroked her hair and lifted her into his lap. She was smaller than people thought, and he was stronger. “I’ve always known. I can see it burning in you. Your goodness and strength. The prophesy is about us- and I’m the Witch.”

“I don’t care about a stupid prophesy,” Jason told her firmly. The edges of their clothing was burned, and the air crackled with static, and he ignored it all to pull out his handkerchief. Her lightning-tears we’re slowly turning back to normal ones, and he dried them tenderly. “I swore to live and protect you when we married. Nothing will change that.”

“But you have to,” Dara trembled. Her throat was raw from screaming and her eyes were red. Jason had never lived her more. “Before I hurt anyone.”

“Nothing in that prophesy says you’ll hurt anyone,” he told her firmly and gathered her up in his arms. “Thunderstorms are always dark, and I

“I will be,” she insisted sadly. “I feel it, waiting.”

“It can wait longer,” Jason said, and stood. “If the Sun is supposed to hold it back, and I’m the Sun, it can wait forever. Can’t be more stubborn than my damn fool apprentice.”

Dara laughed wetly and sniffled into his handkerchief. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Jason murmured, and kissed her forehead as he started back down the trail with Kellen and Tier drifting nervously behind him. “Lightning all done?”

“For now,” she hedged sadly. “I can still feel it.”

“Tell it to piss off until you’ve had some food and some sleep.”

“Will you stay with me? Even now?”

She sounded so sad, and so scared. It broke Jason’s heart and he held her closer.

“Forever,” he swore without hesitation. “If you turn evil and burn down the kingdom. If you ARE the Lightning Witch, or just the Green Lady in our little cottage. I will always stay, as long as you want me.”

“I will always want you beside me,” she whispered, and pressed her nose into the forge-burned cloth of his shirt. “Forever.”

He kissed her forehead, and then the tip of her nose. “Now, we are going home, and I am making you some of that tea you gave me when I was sick, and then we’ll talk about this prophesy