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EIGHT YEARS OLD

I was five years old when Annelise had been summoned to be the royal healer.

When she had left and never looked back.

Zion raised me alone, doing the best he could, but he didn’t have the most…

watchful eye. He was busy with his blacksmith business, often times not returning home until late in the evening.

I had been one of the youngest Shades to be conscripted into the king’s army at the ripe age of eight years old.

One of the few Shades to join before my magic had awakened.

Due to my lack of years and experience, I was only allowed to visit the castle once a month for basic training.

I wouldn’t be allowed to move there to train full time until my teenage years.

The days I did go, I begged and pleaded to see my mother. But she was always busy. Whether she truly couldn’t step away from her duties or she was ignoring me, I wasn’t sure.

Back in Siraleth, when left to my own devices, I became…

bored. I didn’t have many friends at school.

I was an outcast. The other Shades made fun of me for my strange hair, and the fact that I hadn’t been born a Stormshade.

My magic hadn’t awakened yet, but they already knew.

I hadn’t been born blessed with the storm magic of the Kotova bloodline.

All the Kotovas are Stormshades, didn’t you know? they would say, taunting me.

I did know. I had unfortunately taken after my father in that aspect. I might be the first Nightshade of the Kotova bloodline, but little did they know, I wouldn’t be the last.

I was eight years of age when I joined the king’s service, and I was eight years of age when my magic finally awakened and I turned for the first time.

It had been an accident.

I had been in the schoolyard during our free time, swinging from the low branches on the oak tree, when the students decided to gang up on me. They always chose me to pick on. One of them pulled me down from the tree by my blue and white hair, throwing my small body into the dirt.

I hated feeling so…incapable.

So weak .

I scrambled backward, afraid for my life.

The last time they had ganged up on me, they had wielded a blade.

There were no school instructors in sight, and I hadn’t come into my magic yet.

I was a late bloomer in that regard; most Shades came into their magic early.

Between two and five years of age. We had already been training with magic at school, and I had sat those lessons out, unable to apply that knowledge to my own magic.

Just another reason for them to make fun of me.

As I scrambled backward in the dirt, away from the group whose intentions I could only guess, I sensed something deep within me surge up. As if it were an ember within my core, it rose to the surface, simmering below my skin.

I had never experienced anything like it before.

I pulled on that ember, not knowing what would happen when I did.

One moment I was a young girl, dirty hair and skin, scrambling away from her attackers. In the next, I was a white wolf of sizable stature, towering over them.

They backed away, trembling and in shock as they saw my transformation.

I had expected it to hurt…the first time I turned. But it hadn’t. It was as easy as breathing. One moment I was a girl, and the next I was a wolf. It was as simple as flicking a switch within myself.

Most Nightshade witches were black wolves. It seemed to be the default color for most Nightshade animals. Cats, crows, tigers, ravens, wolves…they were all black.

But not me.

I could see my stark white coat out of the corner of my eye, and I balked.

It was the same shade as the ends of my blue-white hair.

Had my own hair color played a part in determining my Nightshade form?

This was simply one more way in which I was different.

Another reason for me to stand out among the children my own age.

I had never seen a white wolf before. I had let go of that ember of magic and turned back into a girl, scampering home with my tail between my legs, so to speak.

Zion had reassured me that Nightshades came in all shapes and sizes, but I was still self-conscious about my stark white coat.

Why couldn’t I be like all the other kids at school? This was one more thing for them to bully me about.

I was sick of being bullied for being different. For being smarter than all of them despite my magic remaining dormant. Sick of hearing them taunt me for my mother leaving us, as if it was something she chose. Sick of them mocking me and provoking me until, finally, one day I would snap.

And snap, I did.

I returned to school the next day, acting normal. As if my magic hadn’t awoken yesterday in a moment of panic and terror. The instructors congratulated me on the awakening of my magic, placing me in the Nightshade studies class where I would learn to control my magic and my change.

I had practiced all night, and I was confident I already had a pretty good handle on it. The magic came easily to me.

What I didn’t know at the time was that when a Nightshade took on their animal form, they also took on some of the tendencies of that animal. If too long was spent in your animal form, you could become stuck in that form forever. You needed to learn to control the magic, lest it control you.

The next free period at school that day, I had wasted no time shifting into my wolf form, terrorizing the students who had ganged up on me the day prior.

I had been chasing them around the field, growling and yipping at their heels.

Most of them were only Shades, but those that were Nightshades changed form and ran from me.

One of them changed into a rabbit.

That was the moment I felt things…change for me.

The moment I had lost control a little bit…

but that I hadn’t minded one bit. That I had enjoyed it.

I remember thinking that even though I had been late coming into my powers, the instructors should have prepared me better, regardless.

They should have taught me the dangers of our changed forms, and that what happened next wasn’t my fault at all.

The moment I saw the boy change into a rabbit, my wolf cravings took over. I hadn’t known that could happen, or that it even was happening at the time. All I knew was that I was hungry .

I took off after the rabbit, forgetting entirely that I was a girl and not a wolf. The change took over my every thought. It wasn’t until I stopped running, sinking my teeth into the soft flesh of the rabbit, that an inkling of what I had done entered my mind.

At eight years old, I had killed my first Shade.

And I didn’t regret it. Not one bit.

The instructors had brought Zion in to speak with him, and I could hear their conversation from outside the doorway where I sat. They had placed me in a chair outside the classroom, my hands clasped together in my lap, my head leaning back against the wall.

A smile on my lips.

Was I supposed to be sitting here feeling remorseful? I wasn’t. The boy I had unintentionally eaten had bullied me relentlessly . He had teased me. Called me a freak. Pulled my hair. Pushed me into the dirt. He thought me fragile and weak .

But now…now I was anything but.

I remember sitting outside the classroom, my only thoughts consumed by how my belly was full and my enemies had been vanquished.

I was more powerful than all of those other children, and I only craved more.

It was the first time in my life I felt as if I could stand up for myself—protect myself—and I wouldn’t apologize.

I only craved more power. I wanted to be the most powerful Shade my instructors had ever seen.

“She has enormous potential, but we fear her magic may be…unpredictable,” I heard the instructor say to Zion.

“Unpredictable?” he asked, his voice raised. “She killed a classmate. Have you ever seen this happen before?”

A moment of silence passed, and I imagined the instructors were sharing carefully guarded glances, though I couldn’t see their expressions from outside the doorway.

They appeared to be unequipped to handle such a delicate situation.

I imagined they would have struggled for words in the same way that they did now when Gregor’s parents were called to the school after I was sent home.

“What am I supposed to do?” Zion asked, his voice clinging to a desperate note.

“We suggest pulling her out of school,” the instructor replied.

I could hear Zion running his hand through the scruff on his face.

He had been working late at the shop these past few weeks and each night when he returned home, he had bags beneath his eyes.

He was raising me alone, providing for us alone, and it was wearing on him.

He was doing the best he could, and I didn’t want him to think that my actions reflected my upbringing.

It had nothing to do with Zion at all. I was simply taking back the power they had taken from me.

“You don’t think that will only make things worse?” he asked, releasing a heavy sigh. “She needs to train with peers her own age. She needs to learn to control her magic.”

“While I agree, I’m afraid it’s too much of a risk to the other students,” the instructor replied.

“Too much of a risk to the other students,” Zion murmured. “What about Donika? She is just going to be cast aside? Didn’t it occur to you that is the very reason this happened in the first place?”

The instructors stirred uncomfortably.

“They bully her. She has stopped telling me about it, but I know it happens still. I believe this is a sort of…retaliation. I’m not sure her actions were vindictive in nature.”

“I have to disagree,” the instructor replied. “She didn’t show a fragment of remorse for Gregor. In fact, when she turned back into her human form, the first thing she stated was that she was still hungry .”

Zion pushed the table away, and it screeched across the floor. “You didn’t protect her. That boy has been torturing her for the last three years and you have done nothing to prevent it. Just yesterday they pulled her down from that tree by her hair!” His voice was on the edge of shouting.

“We can’t have eyes everywhere…”

“Bullshit.” Zion stood, his chair screeching away from him against the tiled floor.

“This is just as much your fault as it is hers. You didn’t protect her.

She should have been in the Nightshade advanced class from the very beginning, despite her not having shown a lick of magic yet.

You know how powerful I am, and how powerful her mother is.

You knew she wasn’t a Stormshade, and there was no possibility of her being merely a Shade.

You didn’t protect her from the relentless torture those children put her through, and now you want to blame her for finally standing up for herself. ”

The instructor cleared his throat to speak, but Zion stopped him.

“I would take her from this school, regardless. You have done a poor job educating her, and this is not her fault.”

“You can’t always protect her—” the instructor began.

“She is my daughter. I will do exactly that.” Zion replied through clenched teeth.

He tore from the room in a visage of fury and scooped me into his arms, though at this point I was far too tall to still be carried.

We left the school that day and didn’t look back.

That is…until the time with my tutor came to an untimely conclusion. Zion did his best to home school me at first, but he didn’t have the time or the energy for it. He needed to hire a full-time instructor for me.

That was when I went to Cirilla’s house for the first time.