Of Love and Shadows

Prologue

Thalia

Since I was born, I had always thought there was more to me than meets the eye. I was born on Starfall and had a strange birthmark of a crescent moon on my collarbone. Plus, I didn't look like either of my parents. With my black, almost violet, hair and golden eyes, I looked nothing like my golden mother and my brown father.

They always told me I was special. Special, how? I don't know. But my magic was something special. I can manipulate light and create light, speak to it, too. They call me a Lightsinger, something of a rarity where I'm from. There were only Shadowsingers, and they were only Illyrian, but they were rare too.

My High Lord has a Shadowsinger as a Spymaster. I've never met him, but my father has. He said he wasn't what he thought he would be. Since Illyrians were usually brute-like in nature, this Illyrian was kind, though quiet. I had asked if I could meet him, but my father said no, and I was quite disappointed.

You see, my father only lets me leave the house with a sentry or two, since I'm "special". I'm not allowed anywhere near the House of the High Lord and his Inner Circle. I don't know why, but it's my Father's rules.

But it was about time I broke them.

So I began teaching myself to fight and to use my magic. With my Father's head sentry, of course. We trained on my magic for months, on swordsmanship, hand-to-hand combat, and defence. though I was slow at first, I eventually got the hang of things. And soon it became like a sixth sense to me; soon I was able to beat all the sentries, even the head sentry.

I began sneaking out of the house to go drinking and dancing under the beautiful Valaris sky with new found friends. It was something I loved to do.

I finally had a taste of freedom from my Father.

But one night, shit hit the fan.

Father found my stash of swords, daggers and bows, and found me practicing magic. He threw one of the biggest fits ever. He was not happy. He had forbid me from leaving the house for six months, locked me in my room and shut me out from the world. What really broke me was the times he would come in to my room and beat me black and blue until I was unconscious, starved me for a week, and forbid my mother from seeing me. Those were the longest six months of my life. I only had my magic to keep me company, whispering that I would escape one day, that I would find freedom and peace in the High Lord's House with his Inner Circle.

So I began my plan to run from this hellhole, to have my own freedom my own peace. It took a lot out of me but I taught myself to make wards around my room so my father didn't hear me going out the window, and glamoured myself so the sentries below my window wouldn't see me. At some point my glamour must have gave way, because I was attacked from behind by the sentries watching over me from my bedroom window. I didn't want to do it, but I killed them. I had shoved light down their throats until they were turned to ashes from the burn of it. I will live with it for the rest of my life, but freedom was more important than the men who watched me break under my father's power.

I will fight for what is right, even if I have to kill for it.