CHAPTER ONE
The sun never set on the day I was taken.It feels like remembering another life now, a life before the fire, before the blood, before the pain. Back when I didn’t know what I was. Back when the world still felt kind. I didn’t realize it then, but that summer was the last time I would ever feel safe.
Back then, life in Vestance felt perfect. I lived with my family in a quiet town tucked into the northern hills, Novil. And I was still a girl sheltered by love, who dared to dream. Midsummer marked the end of my childhood, and my innocence. It was the year I turned eight, and I was old enough to remember everything, but too young to understand it.
The midnight sun and the moon watched over me that night, draping the world in a golden shroud. But before there was nothing—before the endless darkness—there was warmth, and music, and joy.Everyone had gathered in the glade by the lake, to celebrate the summer solstice. It was one of the old traditions, a remnant from when gods ruled the world.
Before kings and queens and wars. Or so the stories went. Most people didn’t believe in the ancient gods anymore. In any gods at all, really. But my mother did, and it was beautiful. Her faith gave her something the rest of the world had lost.
Hope.
I wanted to be like her. I really did. I listened to the stories, sat through the prayers and sang the hymns, but eventually, they all blurred together. Gods, myths, legends and fairy tales.Pretty lies, my brother called them.
But not all of them were pretty. There were a few I could never shake. The ones that scared me. The ones about monsters in the shadows, human sacrifices or ancient gods that devoured the light.
I was too young to understand the truth within the stories.
Maybe I still am.
My mother had her own ways of honoring the gods. Rituals her own mother had passed down to her, and she was trying to pass down to me. Every year, we’d toss last year’s flower wreaths into the midsummer fire, before weaving new ones. She said it brought good fortune, that it was a ’thank you’ to the gods for what we already had. If my mother taught me anything, it was to always be grateful.If your heart is full of gratitude, the gods will give you more to be grateful for,she’d say.
I remember standing beside her that day, the smoke curling around our ankles and the flames crackling high into the golden sky. My mother wore her old summer dress, its fabric scattered with tiny flowers. It had thinned with time and sun, the hems frayed from years of wear, but I still thought it was the most beautiful dress in the world. I loved the way the pattern danced when she moved, like wildflowers caught in a breeze.
It was one of the few times I saw her without her hair tied back with a scarf, or an apron around her waist. Midsummer, birthdays, and the winter solstice celebration, those were the only days she let herself just be. Her hair blew loose around her face, golden in the firelight, and she looked almost otherworldly, murmuring her prayers into folded hands. She always looked so calm when she did her rituals. As if she felt something the rest of us couldn’t. Like she could hear the spirits in the wind, while we only heard the rustling leaves.
The bonfire that year was the biggest I’d ever seen. It stood tall at the center of the glade, built from split logs and dry brush. It symbolized surviving the winter. Summer had returned and we were still here to see it. That alone was worth celebrating.
“It’s time, Kera,” my mother said.
She reached for my hand, lacing her fingers through mine with a soft squeeze.
“You ready?”
I didn’t answer.
“What’s wrong, my dove?” she asked.
I stared into the grass. “Einar says none of this is real.”
“Well,” she said, “your brother should learn when to keep his mouth shut.”
“So… it’s not?” I asked.
“Do you want it to be?”
I hesitated, then nodded.
“Truth is, sweetie, no one really knows what’s real and what’s not,” she said. ”We can’t know what happened before we were born. We can’t even know what’s happening far away, right now. But Ichooseto believe. And I think there’s truth in all stories.”
Her words made me smile, just a small tug at the corner of my lips. But then I remembered the scary stories, the ones about curses and ancient gods and things that lived underground, and my smile faded.
“Even the scary ones?” I asked.
“Especiallythe scary ones.”
There was something in her tone that made me step back. Maybe it was better if none of it was real. That way, the scary ones wouldn’t be either.
“I think I’m ready now,” I said.
