Prologue
T he smell of burning flesh was impossible to ignore.
But worse than the fire, worse than the death, was the child’s scream.
She crumpled before the flames, knees slamming into the dirt as a wretched sob tore free from her throat. She beat the ground with her tiny fists, lost to a grief too vast for someone so small, too young to understand that loss does not listen, does not bargain.
After the man folded the scroll, he wanted to help the girl. He wanted to hold her, comfort her, soothe her—provide her any sort of protection from the guilt surrounding this horrendous fate. But the King would never allow it, and he would only make matters worse if he tried.
So he stood there silently and watched as the putrid, sickly sweet smell of burning skin wafted through the air.
He listened to the hiccupped sobs and whispered apologies tumble from the girl’s lips, feeling tormented by the scene blazing before his eyes, noting the strange contrast between the flames and the hazy twilight.
He couldn’t help but think something so beautiful should not accompany something so horrific.
Then again, the most horrifying things always wear the mask of something beautiful.
The King looked over at him, emotionless. “See to it the child gets taken back to my estate and placed with a ward. I have plans for the girl.”
He dipped his chin. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
The King kicked his heel into his horse’s side, ready to ride back down the hill. Until, without warning, he stopped.
The sound of the child’s desperate pleas crescendoed, her shrill voice cracking because her vocal chords were no longer able to withstand such violent abuse. The ground rumbled, and the air sharpened with an almost palpable electricity.
He studied the child before glancing at the King, catching the slight twitch of his brow. And so the man wondered...
Could it be that the warning the child’s mother had given him all those years ago was true? Was this proof of what she claimed to have seen in the Veil? He hadn’t believed her—not fully. Not because he thought her a liar, but because some things should be impossible.
But he knew impossible was a human word, and human words had no merit in the dealings of gods. Plus, he felt it. Felt the magic being pulled from his veins as easily as plucking a red spider lily from a field of white gardenias.
And so he knew.
Just as the girl’s mother had warned, the Cycle had chosen.
And it had chosen her.
He had to act quickly if he wanted to prevent the child from revealing herself to the King. So, he made a decision that he would later scrutinize, questioning if he had made the right choice.
He reached down within himself, summoning the full weight of his magic before the King could become aware of what he had done.
He sealed the girl’s magic deep, deep within her, erasing any lingering traces of it from her veins.
For she was young, and the magic was only just now awakening, and so the child could not know what power truly lurked beneath her skin.
It was a decision that had blessed him; it was a decision that would haunt him.
When he would later ask the child how she felt, she would tell him she felt inexplicably empty—like something was ripped from her, leaving her without some vital piece of herself.
He would never tell the child the feeling was not for the reasons she thought it was.