Magic was always going to be my downfall. I’d known that from the start.
It wasn’t difficult at first. To pretend. I merely had to tell myself that I began on that cold, rainy night, and there was nothing before or beyond that could hurt me. I was no more than a young girl, stumbling out of the Argent Forest of Ylliun into the well-groomed grounds of Kiriong demesne and then collapsing from exhaustion—a wreck of a person, found by the wardens and nursed back to health by the palace healer. Whatever else I’d been was gone, leaving only a gaping void in my memory and a horrid power itching for recognition deep inside me.
I never pried into that pit. I sealed it shut and swore that was the night I began. A servant girl, nothing else.
How my story would end seemed clear, too. Aged, feeble, and filled to the brim with a life spent concealing my secret, one day I would simply disappear. Missing no one and not being missed, unseen and unseeing, forgotten like a breath. Just another blade of grass out of many.
I made my peace with it. Kiriong had become my world, the work the only thing that mattered. I lost myself in the labyrinthine insides of the palace, its wooden walls bathing in the orange-tinted light of a hundred lampions. All I had was the sun beating down on rising red roofs and golden spires; the unforgiving, lush scents of the terrace garden following me into tumultuous dreams; endless days working under the humid sky, the constant chatter of servants, and sweat pouring down my back under rough-woven garments. And it was enough.
I was thankful. I had a roof protecting me from the incessant rains, sweet fruit to eat, and a wonderful garden to mind. I cared little for the plights of those I didn’t know. I heard not the cries of people like me burnt on the pyres of magehunters, felt not the towering pressure of the empire or the torrents of magic sieging the shores of our world. And if sometimes the ache around my gritted teeth grew too harsh, and the buzz behind my eyes swelled too high, and the secret I tried to unknow every day choked my throat shut, I endured. If it was up to me, I’d never have changed a thing.
But I am not just me, as none of us are only ourselves. We are sprouts poisoned from the start, remnants of grudges by those who came before, vessels of promises broken or kept too close. This land is a ruined place, and it never forgets. Below the tender skin of the world, ancient roots of sins untold enmesh the soil, clutching at the bedrock, yearning for a place in the sun.
Some of us never escape their grasp. Echoes of bygone powers tempt us, clots of old blood cling to us like dew drops to a spider web. I would learn that soon. I would become the gust of wind severing the web, the torrent tearing up the roots—the firestorm consuming itself if nothing else worked.
But not yet.
First, there had to be doubt. First, there had to be despair, and there had to be love.
First, I had to meet Gray.
And here’s me reading the prelude on camera, because it’s fun!
Helyna L. Clove 