It was an ordinary day—or so it began. My fourteenth year hadn't brought many changes. I was still the weakest, still the quietest, still the one who watched everyone from afar and read what lay behind their faces. But that day, something changed. Something changed me... forever.
I was in the palace's back garden, under the big tree I'd loved since childhood. Its leaves lazily swayed in the wind, and sunlight filtered through them, scattering soft shadows across the ground. I was reading an old book I'd found in a neglected wing of the library, about ancient philosophy and something called the "nature of the self." I wondered—as I often did—why I didn't possess anything special. Why wasn't I born like Rayne or Alexis or Claire?
Then... it appeared.
A red screen. No, not just red—deep crimson, like dried blood stuck to glass. It floated before me without sound, without preamble, without warning. It was there, clear, sharp, frightening.
