Prologue
The little girl didn’t scream when the light touched her. Her mother did.
It carved across the child’s back in brilliant white branches, splitting beneath her skin like lightning searching for the earth. For one impossible second, everything went silent. Then the world began to burn.
Green flames climbed the walls of the homes surrounding them, devouring wood and stone as if both were nothing more than paper. Beyond the village, the sky had split into colors that did not belong together; pink and orange bursting across the heavens like a dying star, while thick purple clouds rolled in the distance. The little girl stood frozen in the middle of it all. She was too young to understand why everyone was running. Too young to understand why her mother was crying. Too young to know why the mark burning across her back felt less like a wound and more like something waking up.
Her mother dropped to her knees in front of her and took the girl’s face between trembling hands. “There’s no time.” Another voice answered from somewhere behind them. “She’s too young.” Her mother’s grip tightened. “That’s why it has to be her; she won’t remember.” The ground shook beneath them. Somewhere nearby, something screamed. NOT human. Her mother flinched but never looked away from her daughter. “Listen to me.” Her voice cracked. “You have to be brave now.”
The little girl’s bottom lip trembled. “Mama?” Her mother closed her eyes. Just for a second. When she opened them again, something inside her expression had changed. The fear was still there, but beneath it was something heavier. Acceptance.
She pulled her daughter against her chest and held her so tightly the little girl could barely breathe. “I love you,” she whispered into her hair. “More than every star that has ever burned.” Behind them, the air began to ripple.
At first it looked like heat rising from stone. Then the distortion widened, stretching vertically until the world itself seemed to tear open. Light poured through the opening; soft, pale, and completely untouched by the destruction around them. The little girl stared at it. Then at her mother. “Mama, come.” Her mother’s face crumpled. “ I can’t.” The child grabbed her hand. “Yes.” Another explosion shook the ground. Her mother stumbled forward but caught herself, wrapping both hands around the girl’s tiny fingers. For one heartbeat, neither of them moved.
Then her mother kissed her forehead. Once. Slowly. Like she was trying to memorize the feeling. “You’ll forget this place,” she whispered. “You’ll forget me.” “NO!” “You have to.” Her mother guided her toward the light. The mark across her back burned brighter with every step. White. Gold. Alive. “Mama.” Her mother stopped at the edge of the opening. Tears streaming down her face now. Her mother reached back. Their fingertips touched, and then the world pulled them apart.
The child fell backward into the light. Her mother disappeared behind a wall of white. For a moment, the little girl thought she had been abandoned. She could not understand the flames, the scar. She didn’t understand why the last thing she saw before darkness swallowed her was her mother’s face, illuminated beneath a burning sky.
She wouldn’t understand for years.
Her mother wasn’t abandoning her.
Her mother was letting her go.