Ella’s mother’s eyes met Ella’s one last time, filled with an agonizing mixture of guilt and rage, mouthing for her to run.
Her body crumpled, knees hitting the sand before she collapsed entirely.
The light in her eyes dimmed, leaving Ella staring at the lifeless form of her once powerful, invincible mother.
Ella’s mind splintered, flashes of laughter with her mother stabbing through her shock like shards of ice. The scream lodged in her throat was a choked memory of warmth now lost. Theworld around her faded into a dull blur, the sound of the waves replaced by the deafening silence of her shock.
Vivienne’s feet sunk slightly into the sand as she stepped toward Ella, her smile shifting to something more cruel. Vivienne’s voice sliced through the thick silence, each word measured, drawn out with cold amusement. “What’s your name, child?”
Ella felt the force holding her loosen, and though her limbs were free, she remained mute, paralyzed by terror.
The sharp sting of Vivienne’s slap jolts Ella, her cheek blazing with pain. “Your name is Sin now,” Vivienne whispered, her voice as cold as death. “So you never forget exactlywhatit is that you are.”
Vivienne repeats the question, and this time, trembling Ella whispers, “Sin.”
Vivienne’s fingers closed around Ella’s small wrist, their touch searing. She yanked Ella forward, dragging her across the sand as Ella’s feet stumbled to keep up.
Ella’s mind fractured under the weight of grief. Each step away was a betrayal, each breath without her mother a crime.
Ella glanced down, eyes widening as a dark, twisting mark etched itself onto her wrist, the black tendrils burning her skin like fire.
A symbol of her new, terrifying reality as she was pulled into the unknown, her mother’s lifeless body left behind on the starlit shore.
I
Cinder
Sin
Perched on the highest branch of an apple tree, Sin overlooked the view of the king’s castle, far in the distance.
It was midmorning—the sounds of the light breeze and birds chirping interrupted by hisses of pain from Sin’s brutalized back. A different range of sounds than the castle normally puts out in the middle of the night every month. Sounds of music and pleasure from the heir’s balls of debauchery.
Sin’s eyes twinkled at the memory of those sounds coming from afar, the aura of the future she used to dream of. It had been a long while since she’d dreamed of anything, aside from a will to live.
The scars on her face and body were a constant reminder of the torment she endured at the hands of her malefic stepmother, Vivienne. Each scar told a story of pain, cruelty, and a life filled with darkness. They had become a barrier between her and the world, isolating her from the possibility of a better future.
Yet, as she gazed at the castle in the distance, taking a painful bite out of an apple, she couldn’t help but feel the spark of hope ignite within her. If only she had a chance to rewrite her life, her destiny, and reclaim her true identity.
One of a witch.
Half witch, half fae.
In a house filled with fae, she was the only witch. A product of her tool of a father sleeping around on his expeditions. Shewas certain she had more half-siblings around the continent, but only she was kept. Not for any familial feelings or because she was special, but because of her blood.
The blood of a witch could provide magical power to create spells to profit from. Always the entrepreneurs, her family.
When her step-sisters would eventually be married off, it would only be allowed for a cost, since they viewed everyone and everything around them as property and profit.
Not that they minded, Sin assumed. Anything to please their mother, who had a knack for cruelty that would make interrogators blush.
Each scar on Sin’s body was for her blood. Only her blood could create the powerful, more expensive spells. So expensive that they lost track of the accumulation. Because of it, Sin could easily stash coin within her mattress. Not that she could ever spend it, because the only time she could ever leave the house was when they sent her into the woods to forage, since a witch could always sense the power emanating from each plant like it had a beating heart.
Their magic practically whispered to each other in the middle of the night when she’d escape the manor, seeking the witch Magnolia, who’d been secretly mentoring her for decades.
“Wrong,” she’d corrected for what felt like the hundredth time, her tone stern but laced with an undercurrent of worry as her words from last night echoed in Sin’s mind. “If Vivienne kills you for this, don’t you think it should be worth something?”
Sin swallowed, glancing down at the incomplete rune magically tattooed on her wrist—marks that only she, Magnolia, and perhaps other witches could see.
