Chapter 1

Twenty years ago

The thimble seared Mara’s palm.

She could feel the ancient magic thrumming through the silver filigree, hungry and wild—the way it always did when peril approached. The intricate patterns etched onto its surface were a mix of vines intertwining with stars. It had been passed down through seven generations and held the ability to channel Tiandil magic. Seven generations of mothers clutching this same piece of metal, praying for the foresight it promised.

“They’re coming!” Jorik’s voice cracked as he stumbled into the house, fifteen years old and already nearly as tall as his father. Sweat plastered his brown hair to his forehead, and his chest heaved from running. “Mama, I saw them at the gate. Three of them. The Vashara Council.”

Mara’s hand shot out, pulling her eldest daughter close. Lexi was thirteen, slight and delicate, with her father’s grey eyes, and she harboured a gift they’d spent her entire life trying to hide. The magic had awakened in her blood two years ago. It was small things at first, glimpses of power. So, they’d taught her to bury it deep, to never speak of what she was, to be invisible. They’d been so careful. So careful.

Not careful enough.

“Where’s your father?” Mara demanded.

“In the workshop,” Jorik panted. “I already told him. He’s trying to hide. He’s waiting for Lexi to join him.”

The door blasted open again, this time with enough force to crack the frame.

Three figures filled the doorway, backlit by the dying afternoon sun. Their robes were immaculate despite the dusty road, their bearing that of people who had never been told no. The Vashara crest gleamed, a circle of twelve stars, each representing one of the noble houses—gleaming in silver thread across their chests, and at the centre of each ring of stars sat the emblem of the house they represented.

The tallest stepped forwards first. She was slight, with the Vashara mask covering her face; only her eyes and their eternal malice shone through. The house emblem gave her away as House Ravik, and when she moved, it was with the precision of someone who saw the battlefield in everything.

“Mara Trandator,” she said, her voice carrying the weight of judgment already passed. “By order of Lord Valcairn and the Vashara Council, you are harbouring unregistered Blessed. We are here to collect them.”

“There’s been a mistake.” Mara’s voice came out steadier than she felt. She kept Lexi behind her, one hand gripping her daughter’s thin shoulder. “No one here is—”

“Don’t.” The second figure stepped forwards, a man with silver threading through his black hair. He was of House Mavros, one of the most terrifying houses, for they could get inside your head and control you. There was no escape.

The third remained in the doorway, silent and watching. House Elshar. Her eyes were closed, but Mara could feel the invasive brush of her power as it searched, probed, and read every desperate thought.

“Found them,” the Elshar woman murmured, her lips barely moving. “The father. In the outbuilding. The girl…” She paused, then opened her eyes, the deadly stare that emerged fixing on the grey-eyed child being shielded by her mother. “Right here.” Her gaze fixed on Lexi. “Both Tiandil blood. Both are blessed. Both are coming with us.”

The Ravik woman’s stare didn’t waver, but her stance shifted. Ready. Always ready.
“Nicolas Trandator. Lexi Trandator. Come forward. Resistance will only make this—”

“NO!” Jorik stepped between the three terrifying masked intruders and his sister, his hands balled into fists. He had no magic, no gifts, nothing but fifteen years of life and the fierce, futile courage of a boy trying to protect his family. “You can’t take them. You have no right.”

The Mavros man laughed.

It was a warm sound, almost friendly. The kind of laugh you’d hear at a tavern over drinks with old friends.

And then he raised his hand.

Jorik’s eyes went blank.

Mara watched in horror as her son’s face smoothed into an empty mask, all the fear and defiance draining away like water. His hands fell to his sides. He turned, walking stiffly towards his mother, towards Lexi, and his hand reached for his sister’s wrist.

“Stop,” Mara whispered. “Jorik, stop, please…”

“He can’t hear you.” The Mavros man tilted his head, studying Jorik with detached curiosity. Dark veins had spread from his fingertips up his forearm. This was the cost of holding another mind. The longer he maintained control, the more it would poison him. But for this, for this brief moment of cruelty, he’d bear the price gladly. “Right now, his body answers only to me.”

The thimble.

Mara’s hand closed around it again, pulling it from the pocket of her apron. The silver was warm now, almost hot, responding to her desperation. She didn’t know how to use it properly; that required training, discipline, the kind of education her family had lost generations ago when they’d fled the noble houses. But desperation made her bold.

Show me how to save them. Show me… she pleaded in silence.

The Tiandil vision of foresight slammed into her with brutal force.

She saw herself raising the thimble. There was a flash of silver light. The Ravik woman’s eyes widened in genuine surprise as Jorik stumbled when the Mavros mind control snapped. She saw her husband burst through the front door as his own powers screamed in warning.

Then… Mara saw the exact moment everything went wrong.

The Elshar woman would read her intention. The Ravik would move faster than any normal human could. The Mavros would…

The vision ended, and Mara was staring at three possible futures, all of them ending in blood.

With no other choice and a need to defy fate, Mara raised the thimble anyway.

“Interesting,” the Ravik woman said, slowly tilting her head to the side, when suddenly she moved.

Mara didn’t see her cross the room. One moment she was standing in the doorway; the next, her hand was locked around Mara’s wrist, crushing down with enough force to make bones grind together. The thimble fell from Mara’s nerveless grip, hitting the floor with a soft clink.

“Tiandil artifact,” the Elshar woman murmured, bending to retrieve it. The moment her skin touched the silver, her eyes rolled back, and she gasped as generations of visions flooded her all at once. The cost of touching another house’s artifact. It would give her a splitting headache for days. But she held on, her lips curling in satisfaction. “Seventh-generation piece. Well, well, well… This is worth more than this entire house.”

“We’ll add it to the Lord’s collection,” the Ravik woman said. She still held Mara’s wrist, keeping her restrained with casual ease.

As if right on cue, the door pushed open.

Nicolas Trandator stood there, with the exact grey eyes his daughter Lexi had inherited, along with the weathered hands of a man who worked with wood and metal for a living. He was forty-two years old, one of The Blessed, and now… now he was terrified. He had spent decades learning to hide, and in that moment, defeat overcame him.

“Let them go,” he breathed. “Take me. Take Lexi. But let my wife and other children go. They’re not Blessed. They have nothing you need.”

“Oh, we know.” The Mavros man released Jorik, leaving the boy swaying and confused in the middle of the room. He turned his attention to Nicolas, and his smile widened. “But they saw us. They know what happened here. And Lord Valcairn doesn’t like… loose ends.”

“Then take our memories.” Mara’s voice was raw. “Take whatever you want. Just don’t hurt them. Please. They’re children.”

“The boy isn’t a child, and you need an incentive not to… well… talk about this,” the Ravik woman said. She glanced at Jorik.

Jorik’s eyes widened. “Mama.”

The Ravik woman's hand flicked out, almost lazily, sending metal glinting through the air.

A gurgling noise rolled from Jorik as the tiny blade sliced through his throat.

The sound Mara made wasn’t quite a scream. It was a grief deeper, more visceral—it was the sound of a mother watching her child die. She lunged forwards, but the Ravik woman held her easily, forcing her to watch as Jorik clutched at his neck, blood pouring between his fingers. His eyes found Mara’s, confused, scared and so, so young.

Then he fell.

“NO!” Nicolas started forward, but the Mavros man raised his hand again, and Nicolas and Lexi froze mid-step. Dark veins crawled up the Mavros man’s entire arm now, reaching towards his shoulder. His breath came harder. The cost was mounting. But his focus never wavered.

“Much better,” he said. “Now. Where were we?”

Lexi was screaming but frozen in place beside her father. Mara’s youngest daughter Tina was crying, clutching her stuffed rabbit. And Mara… Mara couldn’t look away from her son.

Jorik’s blood was spreading across the floorboards, seeping into the cracks. The same floorboards he’d learned to walk on. The same floor where he’d played with wooden soldiers and laughed and grown and lived, and now—

“Now, the memories,” the Elshar woman hissed. She’d moved to stand beside Tina, one hand resting on the child’s head, almost gently. “Clear the minds of the wife and the young one. The Lord will want them.”

“Of course he will.” The Mavros man laughed again, the same warm, friendly sound. “Our Lord Valcairn and his collection. Do you think he keeps these coins in jars? Lines them up on shelves like some sort of library?”

“I heard he wears them,” the Ravik woman said, releasing Mara with a shove that sent her stumbling toward Jorik’s body. “Coins on a chain. Likes to feel the weight of all those stolen lives around his neck.”

“Poetic.” The Mavros man tilted his head. “Personally, I think he’s just mad. All that power, all those memories, I mean… It has to scramble your brain, eventually.”

“Mad or not, we are bound to him now.” The Elshar woman glowed with pale blue light. Her own hands trembled slightly; reading memories differed from reading thoughts. Deeper. Costlier. This would exhaust her for days. But the Lord’s rewards for these memory coins made it worthwhile.

Mara crawled to Jorik, her hands shaking as she touched his face. Still warm. Still her boy.
“Why?” she whispered, not even sure who she was pleading to anymore. “Please, he didn’t do anything. He was just a child. Why?”

“Mama?” Tina’s small voice cut through the haze. “Mama, what’s happening? Why is Jorik sleeping? Why won’t he wake up?”

The Elshar woman smiled. “You won’t remember this, little one. In a moment, you won’t remember any of this at all.”

Her glowing hand pressed against Tina’s forehead.

The child’s scream lasted only a second before it cut off entirely. Her eyes went blank, the same terrible emptiness that had taken Jorik under the Mavros control. But this was different.

This was deeper.

This was erasure.

The Elshar woman’s nose began to bleed. Small droplets of red dotted her pale skin as she pulled and pulled, extracting every memory of this night, this horror, these people Tina loved. The memories coalesced in her other hand, taking physical form as a small golden coin that gleamed with an oily, unnatural light.

When she released Tina, the child blinked slowly, looking around in confusion.
“Where…?”

“You’re home, sweetheart,” the Ravik woman said, her voice almost gentle. “You fell asleep, you had a bad dream.”

Tina nodded slowly, accepting this. Accepting the lie that would become her truth. She didn’t even glance at Jorik’s body. Didn’t see her mother’s tears. Didn’t remember she’d ever had an older brother.

“No,” Mara breathed. “No, no, please… Not her. Don’t take her memories of her family. Please.”

The Elshar woman turned to Mara. Blood dripped from both nostrils now, and she swayed slightly on her feet. Two memory extractions in quick succession. She’d pay for this for weeks.
“This will hurt,” she said, almost apologetically, “but you won’t remember the pain.”

Her glowing hand reached out.

Mara tried to run. Tried to fight. But the Ravik woman caught her again, holding her still as the Elshar pressed against her temples.

The last thing Mara saw was Nicolas’s face, still frozen under the Mavros’s control, tears streaming down his cheeks as he watched his wife’s eyes go blank.

The last thing she felt was an essential part of her being ripped away, leaving nothing but hollow spaces where her family used to be.

Then there was nothing at all.

“Efficiently done,” the Ravik woman said, stepping over Jorik’s body without a second glance. The strategic part of her mind was already calculating disposal methods, cleanup protocols, and the most efficient route back to the capital.

The Mavros man released Nicolas and Lexi, who crumpled immediately, sobbing.
“Take them to the wagons. The pair of them will need processing,” he said cheerfully. The dark veins were receding from his arms now, but slowly. He’d feel weak for hours, taste poison in the back of his throat. This was the cost of his power.

They left the house, taking Nicolas and Lexi with them. Behind them, a woman who didn’t remember being a wife sat in a kitchen that didn’t remember being happy, while a child who didn’t remember having a brother or sister asked why the floor was red.

On the table, the pot of stew had gone cold.

And in the Elshar woman’s pocket, two golden coins clinked together, holding everything Mara and Tina had lost, compressed into a metal that would hang from a chain around a ruler’s neck.

Just two more pieces in Lord Valcairn’s collection.

Two more lives reduced to weight and shine.