The Uninvited storm

The café still smelled of tension.

Silas’s knuckles whitened around the rag as Nyx’s words—*the Void Spire*—hung like smoke in the air. Stella, sensing the sudden frost, slid off Rurik’s shoulder and scampered behind the counter. The squad exchanged glances, old habits flaring: Veyra’s fingers twitched toward phantom weapons, Thalia’s ivy cloak bristled, and Kael’s scarred cheek pulsed like a warning light.

Then the door slammed open again.

**All hell broke loose.**

“**HAPPY BIRTHDAY, YOU GRUMPY OLD THUNDERCLOUD!**”

Corrin Tideborn, Veyra’s husband, stood in the doorway, seawater dripping from his storm-silk robes. Behind him surged a tide of spouses and kids—Elara’s twin brothers lugging a keg of tidal ale, Jarek’s mushroom-obsessed aunt, Rurik’s wife Elara Frostwind (no relation to the barista) dragging a ice-sculpted cake shaped like a middle finger. And kids. *So many godsdamned kids*.

Silas froze. “What. Is. This.”

Stella popped up from behind the counter, a paper crown clutched in her hands. “Surprise! You’re *old* now!”

“It’s not a surprise if you *yell it*, stardust,” Kael muttered.

Too late.

The café erupted. Ember Kaelis ignited a string of firecrackers shaped like tiny phoenixes. Marina tossed a jar of glowing jellyfish into the sink, where they pulsed prophecies like *“CAKE SOON”* and *“STELLA WILL CRY AT 8:37 PM.”* Terra Raine, ever the overachiever, thrust a blighted flower into Silas’s face. “I’m *healing* it! Like you healed… uh… stuff!”

“Kill me,” Silas growled.

Nyx smirked. “Later.”

The singing was worse than battle cries.

They’d rewritten Tempest’s war anthem.

*“Stormborn, stormbred,*

*Grumpiest man alive!*

*Burned the sky,*

*Now he’s forty-seven—*

*Wait, thirty-seven?*

*STILL OLD!”*

Veyra conducted with a flaming ladle. Rurik pounded the counter like a war drum. Even Mira Kel, who’d supposedly taken a “day off,” slouched in the corner, mouthing the words while sharpening her new knife.

Silas’s eye twitched. “Who. Did. This.”

Stella blew a noisemaker. “Me! Mama said your face gets *scrunchy* on birthdays. I fixed it!”

The gifts were a parade of disasters.

Ember handed him a chunk of smoldering obsidian. “From the *Volcanic Heart*! It’s illegal!”

“You’re illegal,” Silas snapped.

Marina presented a jar of sentient seaweed. “It sings lullabies! *Mostly* about drowning!”

Thalia’s husband, Jarek Sandsong, dumped a sack of hourglass sand on the counter. “For your wrinkles.”

“I’ll shove this down your—”

“Language,” Elara hissed, swatting him with a dishrag.

Then came Smudge the void lynx, dragging in a dead crow. Nyx nodded solemnly. “He wrote a poem. It’s… heartfelt.”

The cake arrived last—a towering monstrosity of black icing and lightning-shaped candles. Elara Frostwind (the spouse) grinned. “Carved it myself. The middle finger’s for *‘37 years of service.’*”

“You’re all fired,” Silas said.

Stella clambered onto his back, sticky fingers in his hair. “Make a wish!”

He didn’t.

But the candles blew out anyway, smoke curling into the shape of a storm dragon.

---

**The stories came after—because of course they did.**

Veyra claimed the firepit, the kids sprawled on stolen monastery cushions. “Once, your Uncle Grump here rode a lightning dragon into a volcano—”

“No,” Silas growled.

“—and *named* it Fluffy.”

“**Lies!**”

But the kids were hooked. Even Magnus’s magma castle paused its oozing to listen.

Stella raised her hand. “Did he *really* fight a giant sandworm?”

“Yes,” Nyx said. “It ate his boots. He cried.”

“**I didn’t cry!**”

Kael snorted. “You wrote a ballad about it.”

“It was a *tactical report*—”

The feast shut him up. Silas and Elara (the barista) retreated to the kitchen, him charring meat with repressed storm magic, her baking rolls that *mostly* didn’t explode. They worked in silence, the kind forged from years of cleaning up other people’s chaos.

“You knew,” he accused.

She shrugged. “Stella’s puppy eyes could melt the Void Spire.”

They hauled the food to the café’s tangled garden—a mess of moonblooms and rogue thorns Thalia had “accidentally” enchanted into armchairs. The squad claimed their usual spots: Veyra by the fire, Nyx in the shadows, Rurik using Magnus as a footstool.

Stella flopped into Silas’s lap, Sir Bites-A-Lot’s beetle bottle clutched to her chest. “Tell a *true* story.”

He didn’t.

But the others did.

Kael recounted the Siege of Ashspire (sanitized for tiny ears). Thalia sang a Verdantis ballad about sentient turnips. Rurik let Magnus “summon” a lava moat around the firepit.

And Silas? He drank. Listened. Let the warmth of the fire—and Stella’s weight against his chest—anchor him to this fragile *now*.

---

**The peace lasted until the moons rose.**

Veyra leaned close, her voice low. “Heard the Void Spire’s got a new disciple. Some zealot preaching about ‘cleansing storms.’”

Silas stiffened. Stella snored softly, honey smeared on her chin.

“Not tonight.”

“They’re hunting *you*, Si. Not just the Towers.”

“*Tonight*,” he said, too quietly, “we’re retired.”

They listened. Not out of loyalty. Because they’d all seen the cracks: Nyx’s trembling hands, Kael’s nightmares, the way Rurik’s laughter died when he thought no one was looking.

One by one, they left.

Mira stayed to scrub ale stains off the counter. “You’re a shitty liar.”

“Learned from the best.”

She left the knife.

Silas locked up, the café’s ghosts clinging to him. In the garden, the dying fire spat sparks that danced with the stars.

Stella’s doodle glowed on a napkin—a stick-figure Silas riding a dragon, labeled *FLUFFY*.

He burned it.

Then he poured a drink, the Twin Moons glaring through the cracked window, and wondered when the storm would finally break.

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