Prologue
Seph, 12 years old
“Freak! Weirdo! Loser!”
Their voices chased me like stones.
The woods behind the playground blurred past — twisted branches clawing at my hair, mud sucking at my shoes. My lungs burned. My heart hammered so hard it hurt.
I didn’t cry. Crying made it worse.
If Sable were here, she’d save me.
But she wasn’t.
Why couldn’t I find her?
I had only wanted to go for a walk. That was it.
Sable had left me some coins. Mother and father were out – so I walked to the shop.
And it had been nice. Fun even. Just to have some air.
But the chocolate milk I had been so keen on – that little treat I had wanted already dripped across the concrete where it was knocked from my hands. It splattered the ground like mud.
And now I was running.
“Sable!” I screamed, bursting out of the trees and down the empty street toward home.
A rock caught the back of my neck. Pain exploded white. I stumbled, hit the ground hard — gravel and dirt tearing skin from my knees and palms. The hill dropped suddenly, and Irolled, tumbling through wet leaves until the ground slammed me still.
Dirt filled my mouth. My hands stung.
Then the world went silent.
The laughter stopped. Even the wind was holding its breath.
When I looked up, someone was there.
I knew him — the boy who lived next door. Mother told me not to talk to him. People said his father was a rebel, that he’d tried to overthrow the council, that he’d been executed for it. Only Kieran and his mother had been spared.
That was his name.
Kieran Hawthorne
He was tall — maybe a few years older — black hair falling into sharp blue eyes that didn’t look away.
Sable had said his power leaned toward the dark; Mother thought people like him should be locked away.
But he looked at me as if I weren’t a monster.
“Are you okay?” he asked, offering his hand.
For a heartbeat I hesitated. It felt like a test. His face shifted — like maybe he expected me to refuse.
But I knew what it was like to be different.
So I took it.
