Power chose her. The world will pay.When Elara survives the storm, the academy does not celebrate.It measures her.Stormward is not a place of heroes or rebellion. It is a system designed to contain anomalies, convert power into compliance, and decide who is worth preserving. Witches are not trained there - they are calibrated.Elara does not fight the system.She does not try to overthrow it.She does not even fully resist.She adapts.As surveillance tightens and punishments become quieter, Elara learns the academy's true rule: survival is conditional, and mercy is a transferable cost. Every adjustment she makes shifts the burden onto someone else. Every restraint teaches the system something new about her.When authority fractures and movement freezes, the consequences of hesitation become irreversible. Blood is spilled. Order returns. The world remains intact.Elara does not.Marked by the Storm is a dark fantasy about power without understanding, systems that function by design, and the price of alignment when rebellion is no longer an option. It is not a story about saving the world.It is about what survives when the world refuses to change.