Chapter 1: Shadows of the past
They slaughtered my family when I was seven. Dragged them into the town square at night, like animals waiting to be put down. Called them witches.
Made sure the screams echoed through the town.
I watched from the shadows.
Too small to be a threat.
Too weak to make a difference.
It's been ten years, but I still hear them whisper when the wind blows wrong through the alleys.
We weren't witches — not really. My father could heat metal with a touch of his hand. My mother could make crops grow instantly, could speak to animals.
Small things.
Gentle things.
But here in Grim's Hollow, magic — even the softest kind — means death.
They didn't just burn them.
They shattered my father's hands so he couldn't fight back. Sliced my mother's wrists so she couldn't even hold my brother as they killed him. Bound them to stakes like criminals and lit the fires while the crowd watched in silence. My mother screamed my name until the smoke stole her voice.
I ran before the flames touched her. But the smell of burning flesh never left me.
When the townspeople cleared out and only guards remained, one of them spotted me. Yelled, "Survivor."
They should've killed me.
Most of them wanted to.
I wanted them to.
Except one.
Sergeant Maxwell:
I still remember his breath reeking of beer when he stood over me and said, "You're no survivor. You're a countdown. Your death has already been written."
They kept me alive in a locked cell that smelled of death, buried beneath the old barracks. They brought in scholars, leeches — anyone who claimed they could rip the magic out of me.
When I didn't bleed it willingly, they made me bleed.
Small cuts at first
Then deeper ones.
I stopped crying after the first year.
When I turned fifteen, Maxwell decided he could make better use of me. Use me in ways that made my skin crawl.
He didn't live to see the end of that year.
I killed him with my bare hands. Tore the life out of him with magic I didn't even know I contained. I fled that night, ran until my feet bled and my lungs turned against me.
Now, at twenty-three, I move through Grim's Hollow like a ghost. My long brown hair tangled, my face sharp — high cheekbones, a nose a little too long, pale skin stitched with scars.
The guards still stalk the streets, hunting for their next victim. People duck their heads when they pass — not out of respect but out of survival. They beat anyone who stares for too long. Break bones for the crime of looking. Drag mothers from their children to make an example.
They turned fear into law.
Magic here isn't just forbidden.
It's hunted.
Caged.
Carved out of the living if they're unlucky enough to survive the capture.
So I keep my head down.
Make myself small.
A ghost.
But the magic inside me doesn't like to stay confined.
It waits.
It hungers.
And sometimes when I close my eyes at night,
I can feel it pulling at me. Trying to wake me up.
I've learned to keep it at bay.
I have to.
It's the only way to survive.
The only way to stay invisible.
But Grim's Hollow is small. And it has eyes everywhere.
That's when I see him — the man with the dark, knowing eyes. There are whispers about him, but I don't listen.
He never speaks.
He only observes.
A shadow in the corner of my vision, standing silently — always standing — always waiting, like he knows something I don't.
His presence unnerves me, in ways I can't explain. I can't bring myself to look at him for very long. It always makes me feel like he's studying me.
Learning me.
Like he knows the secret I've spent years trying to bury.
I don't want to see him again.
But I know I will.
Maybe that's the thing I should've learned to avoid by now — the ones that stare. The ones that remember too much.
But deep down, I wonder if it's him I've been waiting for.
I shouldn't.
I'll die long before that even matters.
I've always known that.
The ones that hurt you aren't the monsters.
They're the ones that make you become one.
And sometimes the monsters don't wait until the end.
They come for you when you least expect it.
When I die, it won't be quick.
It won't be by blade, or the guard's hands.
It will be worse.
Something I can't outrun.
The magic inside me —
It will eat me alive before I'm done with it.
It's already begun.
