With her father's memory failing and her mother gone, Soraya Thenayu enrolls in distant Darkwood Academy and immediately becomes enemies with the richest kid at school. Between hiding her father's gift of illegally harvested magic, befriending socia...
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"You're so beautiful."
Adonia gazed lovingly down at her newborn daughter, who she was cradling in her thin, olive toned arms.
Soraya could hear her mother's sweet voice, which, to her, was the most marvelous sound in the world. She blinked her eyes open and noticed that everything looked bright and blurry around them. Her mother's ruby eyes and hair were the only features that came into focus from the white and gray background.
"Can I name her?" Adonia pleaded to what seemed to be the corner of the room. The infant noticed a figure slowly slide away from the shadows and glide closer towards them. He was tall, thin, and had seemingly long silvery hair. Soraya couldn't quite make out his eye color or facial features since they were pale and blended in with the white walls that surrounded them.
"Of course," a male voice said. "Just remember, you can't stay with her for too long."
"I understand," the red eyed woman replied sadly. "But just look at how wonderful she is," Adonia bent down and kissed Soraya's cheek before whispering in her ear, "please, save your younger brother."
* * *
Soraya opened her eyes and gazed at the ceiling of her room. The wood patterns of the blue spruce trees flowed and ebbed in one direction, similar to the current of a winding river. Light creeped in from the cracks of the drawn curtains, but it was of bright reds and oranges from the setting sun.
All the events from earlier that day swarmed around the girl's mind. For a split second, Soraya relaxed, believing she had also dreamed about harvesting magic and her father nearly suffocating her until she gazed down at the palms of her hands. On her left, she had faded yellow swirls tattooed near the center of her palm, and on her right, she had faded blue web like designs in the same location.
It had all happened. It was all real.
Shivers ran down Soraya's spine when she thought about her father behaving violently earlier that day. The shadows that had formed over his face, the fire behind his blue eyes, him raising his hands, as if to strike her, while using Air Magic to take away her ability to breathe...
Her pet, Yabo, noticed her discomfort and rubbed himself against her hands. "Mow?" he chirped, cocking his head sideways and looking up at her with empathetic black, beady eyes.
"Oh Yabo, thank you," Soraya whispered gratefully to him. He always knew how to cheer her up.
She turned her attention towards the hallway outside her bedroom door, which was lit from the lantern in her father's office. She needed to go check on him, but part of her was worried that he would have another spell of forgetting who she was.
Soraya climbed out of bed and tip toed down the hallway towards the light. She was tempted to grab the family portrait just in case her father needed to be reminded of who she was again. However, Soraya remembered that she had her father's Air Magic and that he wouldn't be able to suffocate her again.
