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The girl lay bleeding in the dirt.

‘They did that to you…’ Thea breathed to her older sister, tears burning her eyes as she forced herself to watch the ragged rise and fall of the unconscious child’s chest.

‘Yes, they did that to me,’ Anya said simply, her expression unreadable.

On the shores of the Broken Isles, Thea found herself at the mouth of a cave, the briny sea air tangling in her hair, with the older Anya at her side and the same little girl facing the hollow in the rocks. Beneath her skin, her veins had darkened, creating a network of black that seemed to shimmer.

‘Some Warsword told me our parents were inside,’ Anya said, watching as her former self took a step towards the jagged outcrop. ‘I knew he was lying somehow, even then.’

Thea wasn’t sure she was breathing. ‘What did you find inside?’

‘Not our parents, that’s for sure.’

Our parents.The phrase sounded strange, even though Thea knew it to be true. The woman beside her and the girl before them – she was a part of Thea, a part of Wren, though she’d been absent all their lives.

‘What then?’ Thea pressed, not sure she wanted to know the answer.

And all at once, she was in her sister’s shoes, experiencing the damp of the cave and the kiss of shadow in her body as though it were her own.

Anya walked into the cave, deeper and deeper, until she was alone. For a moment, the pitch-black swallowed her.

There was no swift and painless death waiting for her. There was no death at all.

A breath rattled from within – not her own.

But Anya was not afraid.

For she knew the darkness, and the darkness knew her. It was already inside her, coursing through her veins, wrapping around her heart.

And then it started.

The transition to becoming a half-wraith.

The little girl fell to her knees as brutal pain speared through her back, her fingertips, her chest. Everything was on fire and the agony was so great that her screams were silent.

On and on it went, the darkness demanding to be felt as it made its way through every part of her, battling her body into submission.

In the shadow of a fallen kingdom, in the eye of the storm

A daughter of darkness will wield a blade in one hand

And rule death with the other

Thea didn’t know when she came back to herself, didn’t know how long they stood there watching the torture unfold, unable to help the poor girl in the throes of agony. Little Anya writhed and begged, screamed and crawled across the floor. When talons sprang from her fingertips, she panicked, clawing at her skin, her face, her eyes.

At some point, older Anya touched her arm.

‘It’s over,’ she said, her voice devoid of any emotion.

The younger version of her had passed out, membranous wings protruding from her back.

The present day came rushing back to Thea. The damp rocky walls of the cavern were all too close, the flickering light of the fires all too bright. Her heart was racing, sweat dampening her brow, as she tried to wrap her mind around all that she’d seen.

Anya watched her closely. ‘Thatwas why I didn’t try to find you and Wren,’ she said quietly. ‘Thatwas why I have stayed hidden in the shadows. Until now.’

Thea’s hands were shaking at her sides, but she didn’t know what to say. No words could undo what had been done to her sister.

‘Now do you see?’ Anya pressed. ‘He’s been setting us up, blaming us for the darkness all along. It’shim.King Artosis the blight on these realms.’