254 years ago
My power explodes around me, the shockwave rippling out. My father only has a second to see me with horror-filled eyes before he winks out of existence, leaving the caverns in an instant.
My magic vaporizes everything in its path. The rock, the rubble, the home I was raised in, the fortune my mother saved for me, the soldiers still lying unconscious outside our front door, the tunnels I called home for the last sixteen years—it all disintegrates the moment my magic touches it, gone as though it never were.
My hair and clothes whip about me, caught up in the vortex of my power. And still it pours out of me. I can’t hear anything over the deafening roar of it. It’s in my ears, in my head, in my heart. It builds faster than my anger, swells larger than my anguish, and cuts deeper than my pride. It’s a sea, and I’m drowning in it, getting sucked farther and farther down into that abyss, that dark, dark abyss.
Just as I feel it’s about to consume me, the magic dies away.
For several seconds all I can do is take shallow breaths, the sound of air whistling in and out of my lungs deafening in the eerie silence that follows.
I sway on my feet, blinking as I take in the sight around me.
Gone. Everything is … gone. The caves, the soldiers, the king.
I stare up at the night sky above me, a sight I yearned for all those years I lived in a windowless house.
And then my eyes land on my mother. She’s the only thing left untouched by my power.
But even she is gone.
I stumble over to her, falling to my knees at her side. I gather her to me, cradling her body in my arms. Her beautiful, violet eyes stare sightlessly past me, her neck gaping open.
“No, Mom …” My voice breaks.
In a matter of seconds, her blood coats my arms and stains my clothes.
This can’t be real.
My eyes fall to her neck wound. I press a shaky hand to it, willing my magic to heal her. Nothing happens. I try again and get the same result. Maybe I used up all of my power earlier, maybe I’m no healer.
Or maybe it’s just too late.
Some strange, wordless sound bubbles up my throat. Because it is too late.
No pulse, no breath, no life.
She’s gone. She’s gone.
Above me, the stars twinkle down.
She’s gone and the stars still twinkle.
I let out an agonized cry, and then another, and another. And then my cries become sobs. I bow my head over her broken body, holding her close. If I could, I’d claw my heart out. It hurts so godsdamned bad.
I bury my face in my mother’s neck. I feel her already cooling blood smear across my cheek and into my hair.
I don’t know how long I hold her to me. Hours or minutes might have passed. My grief can’t distinguish the difference. At some point my sobs taper off, replaced by a heavy, aching numbness.
And then, my skin prickles.
My shoulders tense when I sense hot gazes on my back. I know without looking that the townspeople have come to investigate. My wings are still out. My mother is still cradled in my arms. Still dead.
It doesn’t matter anymore. None of it matters anymore. I have no mother, no house, no fortune, no future.
People begin to whisper behind me, and I can practically feel their curiosity and their fear. My entire life, they thought me a bastard, a poor, magicless bastard. Only now are they seeing my true lineage and power.
Just a day ago this would’ve felt vindicating. Now their eyes feel intrusive.
One of them messaged the king. Told him of my existence. One of them caused this. Whether it was that village girl, or her father, or someone else who saw something they shouldn’t have. They told the king I lived. Surely they knew he’d come for me, surely they knew their words would doom us.
I stand slowly, my mother still in my arms, then turn to face them.
“Who did this?” I say slowly, my eyes moving over the faces of the gathering crowd. “Who wrote to the king about me and my mother?”
No one speaks, though many of them begin to shift uneasily, their eyes moving between me and each other.
“Who did this?” I shout again, my power sweeping out of me. Fairies scream as it knocks them to the ground.
My distinctive wings flare out. For once in my life, I deliberately keep them exposed. Those who haven’t seen them yet now get a good long look at them. I see their eyes widen fearfully.
No one comes forward. I stare at each one of their faces, and this is the moment where we all realize that the boy they thought I was, was a mirage. That this entire time they’ve been the field mice and I’ve been the viper lying in the grass.
“I swear on my mother’s grave,” I say, my voice ringing out in the night, “I will find which one of you did this, and I will make—you—pay.” The earth shakes with my words, and again, people gasp, their faces terrified.
I glance up at the stars. There is one other fairy who needs to pay. One other who deserves the bulk of my wrath.
Without further thought, I bend my knees and spring into the sky, my mother still clasped to me. My wings beat at my back, and for the first time in my life, I force them to fly.
I grit my teeth as they propel me into the air, and at first sheer willpower and a bit of magic keeps me airborne. But then instinct takes over, and my wings begin to move as though I’d done this a hundred times.
And then I’m heading for the stars above me, and I don’t look back at my small town with its small people full of small dreams.
Wrongs must be righted. A king must pay.
And realms will fall for my vengeance.