Chapter 01

TANIA

From darkness is born light.

From wings of ruin,

From a child of the moon,

From throne to throne.

Golden and not white.

A new era.

A queen will be born.

A queen will unite.

A prophecy foretold,

For a new world in sight.

But first, there must be darkness,

so born is light.

I replayed those words in my head. A poem — a prophecy — mother's told their babes at night to lull them. It was a prophecy from a mighty oracle during the times of the Old World. A time that had long since passed. Many had forgotten that the words were meant to warn us of the future. It had become a folk tale to our kind.

To me, it was more.

My parents may not have gifted me much now, but when I was still a babe that showed no signs of her dark power, they adored me. Tiana, my mother and the woman I was so clearly named after, would whisper those words into my ear with her silky voice while stroking her long fingers into my white as snow hair — hair I had gotten from my father.

Those were the words I played on repeat because there was a time when they made me feel safe as if I belonged. There was a time when home was my safe place. My sanctuary and solace from the breathtakingly magical world around us. So maybe, when that wolf had ordered me to leave — more like pleaded, that was why I used the shadows to bring me here.

I was brought home.

And then instantly captured with iron cuffs around my hands and feet to weaken my already weak body so they could throw me in the dungeon. That was where I waited now. In the darkness that I was fond of with one meal a day with water every two days if I were lucky. My clothes were ratty, my hair brown and soiled, and my raven black wings were nailed to the moss-ridden stone wall.

I twitched my nose and let out a low grumble. There were no windows down here and what felt like hours were only mere minutes. I wasn't sure how long I spent in this cell but my parents had yet to visit me. Their precious only child. A daughter of chaos, darkness, and power. They were ashamed to call me their own but they were a hypocritical bunch. How could they be ashamed of me when they had spent their life slaughtering innocent fae just because they were born white-winged.

My father and his father, and the generations before thought it was best for our family to rule because we were fair and just. Where was the justice in killing babes fresh out of the womb?

At least the people I killed could defend themselves, even if they didn't know what they were defending themselves against.

A clang sounded and the wrought iron gate to the cell slid open. I was barely able to lift my heavy head to note who stepped into the filthy cell they kept me in, but when I caught sight of the person my exhausted muscles found the strength to stiffen in fear.

My parents were lingering outside the cell, my father's arms comfortingly slung around my mother's sharp shoulders as they watched Penelope's wicked witch of the west grandmother approach me. The thought of Penelope had my heart shuddering. She was my best friend and although it was kill or be killed, I knew if I had died that night, she would have felt that same ache. I had siphoned from her many times and not once did I get close to killing her because I was fond of her.

"Shadow born," Penelope's grandmother, Kali Bishop, drawled with a malicious smirk curling her lips back.

I knew what she had done to my father when training him, the methods she resorted to when he thought he was being arrogant by doing the opposite of what she ordered. Penelope had shown me the memories that were passed down from generation to generation. I hated this woman and she shared the sentiment.

Kali didn't look a day older than forty. She pulled power from nature and I knew she dabbled in dark magic. Only three lines of witches were granted access to dark magic and the Bishop bloodline was one of them. She used that magic to remain as young as she possibly could but she couldn't stop her aging, just make the progression slower.

"Kali," I spat her name out with the kind of arrogance I knew she hated.

I probably deserved this punishment for what I did but, in the same way, she deserved my disrespect.

Darkness edged at the corners of my vision and I felt the velvety caress of the shadows over my skin as they drew closer to me. I couldn't use them to get the bloody hell out of here because the walls were made of iron imbued stone. It was enough to keep me caged.

"You got my granddaughter killed," Kali narrowed her blue eyes at me and I did my best to disassociate them from Penelope's. I guess it was a good thing that she had a mixture of blonde and white hair that was so long it nearly swept the floor compared to Penelope's hair that was trimmed above her shoulders.

I grinned as the thought of beheading Kali and using her head as a broom formed in my head.

"Your granddaughter got herself killed. Can't say that I'm sorry. That's what happens when you mind someone else's business," but I was sorry. The one person who never saw me as weak or mediocre just because I was a siphoner and had no power over the elements born within me had died and I was sorry that I was the reason for it.

Kali ignored me, flicking her wrist to free me of my binds, and then flicked her wrist again so my wings were set free. I dropped onto the filthy ground on my hands and knees with a thud and a huff.

"You will be punished for what you have done," Kali said conversationally.

I sat up on my heel, flipping my hair back with a cackle, "Hit me with your best shot, old hag."

"If that girl just followed my orders she would still be here today," Kali voiced, a storm of rage and pain filling her eyes, "instead she treated you kindly and look at how you turned out. A menace to us all. Someone who disturbs the balance."

"I disturb shit and you know it," I gritted, ruffling out my wings.

"You are a parasite," she seethed, leaning into my face so I could feel her hatred roll off her, "no one wants you around here. Everyone would be better off if you were dead."

I glanced at my parents who still stood outside the cell with a mask of shame over their features. The darkness in me fed on the pain I felt, eating it away until I felt nothing. I glared at the witch in front of me with a wild gleam in my eyes and devious grin, "You want to kill me, witch?" I asked, goading her, "Do it. Use that power of yours and kill me. Blast me into smithereens."

"I'm not stupid, little girl," Kali matched my expression, "you will just suck it all up like the parasite you are. I've found another means of punishment."

"What's that?" I narrowed my eyes into slits.

A transparent shield blocked the entrance to the cell, effectively locking my parents out. They had the good sense to panic, yelling from what I could tell but I couldn't hear them. Kali had locked us in a little, impenetrable bubble.

"What are you up to, old hag?" I snarled, wanting to get to my feet but feeling too weak to do so. My bones felt brittle as if they would snap from carrying my weight.

She grinned and began whispering a spell beneath her breath, slitting her palm with a blade she kept beneath the long white robe she wore so her blood offering would gain her more power — dark magic at its finest. The shadows turned against me, their cold fingers slithering up my arms and pinning me down. They tugged my wings open, open and ready as an offering.

"No," I muttered as dread filled my system. The reality of what was happening hit me and I gathered whatever dregs of strength I could to fight back but it was futile. A sob crawled up my throat and fear rocked my body, "No, please no. Daddy!" I yelled and as we locked eyes, I knew he didn't want this. This was all Kali, "Daddy, please. I'm sorry. Please. Don't let her do this to me!"

I called. I yelled. I screamed. And I held onto his gaze as he threw blasts of elemental magic at the shields keeping him away. I shuddered when, for the first time in a long time, he switched from elemental magic and dipped his fingers into the well of dark magic inside him. The shield quivered, cracked, but did not shatter.

The witch recited her spell as my tears of pure agony streaked down my face. What were fae without their wings?  Shamed fae were stripped of their wings but we did it humanly, fast and effective. I had a feeling Kali wasn't planning on making this quick.

I felt the burning flames licking my feathers and then smelt them as it incinerated the flesh beneath. Pain was too light of a word to describe what it felt like. I threw my head back and released a wail. By the elements, this was torture at its highest form. Blackness greeted me as it all became almost too much to bare. I squeezed my eyes shut and begged that blackness to consume me.

But.

In the dark flared a lifeline so bright that I couldn't help but be drawn to it. Even as my cries erupted from my lungs and scratched my throat raw, I focused on that glistening white thread, held onto it, and then tug until the pain ebbed — not by much but ebbed nonetheless.

My back burned as the fire ate away the last of my wings, turning it to ash. When Kali was done, everything turned eerily silent around me. I was too scared to move, too scared to even peel my eyes open. But I did so anyway in time to find my father hurriedly making his way toward me.

I scuttled away and curled in a ball, allowing the darkness to flood my system so I wouldn't feel the pain. So I wouldn't anything, "Stay away from me," I growled, hugging my knees to my chest.

My father paused, crouched in front of me so his onyx eyes could bore into mine, "You may have done bad things but you're still my daughter. What Kali just did was not supposed to happen," he reached out for me but I pulled away, cradling myself into the damp corner of the wall.

"Don't you dare touch me," my voice didn't sound like my own and it was surprisingly steady after what had just happened. Tears still steadily rolled down my cheeks and I made no attempt to wipe them away. It was the only proof of the agony I felt, "leave me to rot here exactly as you intended to."

Zephyr loosened a heavy breath while scrubbing a hand down his face. He then held that hand before him with a grim smile. A flower — a peony with light pink petals that faded into stunning cerise at its heart — bloomed in the palm of his hand. He didn't offer it out to me. Instead, he shifted my dirty hair aside and tucked the peony behind my ear with simple words, "Come back to me, little girl."

His knuckles grazed my cheek and I didn't pull away, neither did I lean into the familiar touch that made my gut churn. I just sat there, stone-faced and cold-hearted with wings that were reduced to ash and bones that were brittle and exhausted. I sat there with eyes of onyx like every fae but hair of white like my father's. I sat there with a man that claimed to love me but shunned me the moment he learned of my lack of power, my weakness.

I sat there and didn't even blink because he ignored my simple demand.

He heaved another sigh before standing to his feet and pivoting out of the cell. He and my mother stalked away hand in hand as the iron gate slid shut — Kali was already gone — probably using a spell to escape.

I never moved from my position. Instead, I closed my eyes and found that thread flaring to life in my mind again, and held onto it.