Around the time she gives up her name, it starts to feel like this entire revolution isn’t worth it anymore.
The world is probably lucky that Kelian—she still remembers Kelian, in spite of everything—is there to pick up the pieces, the way he always is.
“You don’t have to do it,” he says. “Everyone would understand if it’s too much. I know I would.”
She knows that he means it. And besides, it’s quite literally true. No one can force her to use the magic only she can wield.
The choice is hers. It has always been hers, since the voice in her head first spoke to her. She was only seven years old, but the power was put into her hands then, and she has never been able to rid herself of it, no matter how much she may have wished for freedom from this strange, devastating ability.
She was in the quiet refuge of the pantry, among cool smooth jars of produce put up for the winter, feeling tenderly at the puffy, painful skin of her eye, a mark of regard from her stepfather. “I wish he were dead,” she whispered fiercely into the quiet darkness of the room. “ I wish he were dead. I wish he were dead.”
“That could be arranged.”
The voice that answered her desperate cry was not in the room. It was inside her head. It was cold, and faraway, and quiet, and immense, like a whole chorus speaking at once. It was nothing she knew how to put into words.
Part of her wanted to run screaming back into the light of the cottage, even if it meant her stepfather’s anger would be reawakened. But it was a small part, and easily forgotten underneath more powerful desires, like a need to know what this strange voice wanted from her. Curiosity was not something her life often allowed her—in fact,
