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Donika took a step towards me, then another, until she was right before me. She was so close I could reach out and touch her if my hands hadn’t been bound and shackled. The cold metal rubbed into my wrists, and I bit the inside of my cheek to keep my composure. This close to me, I could feel the energy rolling off her in waves despite the ash around my wrists choking my connection to all magic. Her magic called to me, and with everything in me I wanted to reach out and grab it. It had been days since I had tasted magic, and Icraved it.

Donika’s smile was wicked as it spread across her face, and a sensation of cold dread settled over me. What piece of the puzzle was I missing?

“It’smyfamilies grimoire too.” She smiled. How could that be? Donika and I were related? The back of my throat burned as I glanced down, trying to piece this together.

“My mother was afilthy littleStormshade, just like you. Though I would never dare to claim her family name, her blood still runs through my veins. When the grimoire didn’t make itself known to me or to Tyr, I knew it would make itself known to someone else in the Kotova bloodline,” she started. She used her shadows to turn my chin up until my eyes met hers. “She and my father had me, and we were all one happy little family together. But that wasn’t enough for her.It was never enough. She and my father remained friends, but my mother moved on to bigger and better things. She left me behind.” Was this why she hated Stormshades so much? Because her mother was a Stormshade, and had left her when she was young?

“That Stormshade traitor tricked the Dark King of Istmere into taking her into his bed. He had no idea what she was at the time, and when he finally found out what she truly was, he cast her out of the castle. Exiled her. He wasweak, he should have murdered her where she stood while he still had the chance. Little did he know, she was already pregnant with his child,” she spat. How could she speak this way about her own mother? How could a love like that have been twisted into such blinding hate?

“What does this have to do with me?” I asked, my voice small.

I had a pit in my stomach that threatened to bring me to my knees before her. Even as she spoke, I already knew.

“She fled to Siraleth, back to me and my father. She gave birth to another worthless little Stormshade. An abomination. A disgrace. She knew she couldn’t keep the baby in Istmere, she would never be safe. She stashed her in the human realm to keep her away from prying eyes.”

My throat felt so thick I could barely swallow down the tears that sprang forth from my eyes. I didn’t dare use my shackled hand to wipe them away. I met Donika’s cold stare with one of my own as she continued.

“We went on about our lives. When I had grown and trained and joined the king’s army, I was able to deceive him and steal the throne for myself. My first act as queen was wiping my traitorous mother’s existence off this planet. Everything was going my way. That is until I heard a rumor about a little Stormshade who had been hidden away in the human realm. A Stormshade that shared my blood. At that point, I had almost forgotten all about it.” She laughed.

“Do you feel that?” she asked.

“What?” I asked, my voice cracking. Another tear spilled down my dirt-stained cheek.I had promised myself I wasn’t going to cry in front of her.

“My magic. It calls to you, doesn’t it?” Her mouth turned up into a smirk. “Like calls to like. The moment I walked in here and saw you for myself for the first time, I knew the truth. Your magic calls to me too, after all.”

“What do you mean?” I breathed.

It couldn’t be…I didn’t want to believe it. But some part of me, deep down, knew that she was telling me the truth. I had never fit in, never belonged. I was always searching for something without knowing what it was, and when I found my magic, I thought thatmustbe it. I had never felt understood by my parents, but they had been hiding the truth from me all these years. They weren’t my parents at all. Did they know that I had magic? Did they know about my mother? Had they been spelled to forget all of it?

“That’s right.” Donika nodded as she saw the truth unfold on my face. “That little Stormshade wasyou, and now that I have you, I amneverletting you go.”

Donika was my family. Tyr was my family. There was a whole life for me here that had beenstolenfrom me. Everything that had come before this was a lie. I had never belonged in the human realm, I always belonged here. How could my mother have lied to me all these years? I would never get the chance to meet my birth mother because she wasalready dead, at the hands of Donika no less. The chance at a different life had been taken from me. How could she have done this? If she hadn’t hidden me to keep me safe…

I swallowed back my tears as another thought occurred to me. If what Donika said was true…I was the daughter of the Dark King.Iwas next in line to inherit the throne. Donika had murdered both my mother,andmy father. My sadness was replaced with a seething rage as I ground my teeth together and met Donika’s lifeless eyes. Did Nikolai know any of this? Had Donika told him who I truly was? My magic pushed against the iron shackles at my wrists even harder now, begging to be set free. This witch standing before me had takeneverythingfrom me, and I would not let her takeanythingelse.

“So, you see little Stormshade, that grimoire is just as much yours as it is mine,sister.”