Page 1 of Tides of Shadows

Chapter

1

It should have been my brother. The gods decided otherwise.

I dragged myself up the stone steps. The echo of my footsteps clung to the damp castle walls. Everything had already been packed. The chests sealed. The ships made ready to sail.

Only farewells remained.

I had left home before, but this time it felt different. I drew a deep breath and pushed open the heavy oak door to the chamber. She stood at the window with her back to me, her ginger hair wild and untamed. She looked like a shadow of a person I once knew. Fragile. Almost translucent.

“Darkness,” she said softly, before I could speak. “Darkness is coming. It can no longer be stopped. Too much has already come to pass.”

My shoulders dropped, listening to these stories again.

“I came to say farewell,” I said at last.

She turned slowly. Her eyes were distant, unfocused, as though she looked not at me, but through me. She lifted her hand and brushed my cheek with her fingertips. Her skin was pale. The only color left in her was her hair.

“Many dangers lie ahead of you,” she said. “I prepared you as well as I could. Now you must face them alone.”

“Mother,” I breathed.

“They will come for you,” she went on, as if she had not heard me. “You will suffer. But it must be. It’s woven into the tide.”

I held still, fighting the urge to flinch from the chill of her skin and the weight of her words. Her prophecies had shadowed our home like perpetual fog, turning joy to dread.

“Mother. Please.”

She blinked. For a fleeting moment, her gaze sharpened, as though she had returned to this world. She turned abruptly and crossed to the sideboard, opened a drawer, and withdrew a small box.

“We have little left,” she said, pressing it into my hands, “but you have to take this.”

When I lifted the lid, I found a familiar necklace. An enormous sapphire, in the shape of a perfect teardrop, cradled in palladium. Our family’s most prized heirloom, the stone hummed faintly in the dim light, alive with trapped ocean energy.

“I am not going there to wield Elementars,” I said quietly.

“I know,” she replied. “But the palace is not about physical power. It is about social standing. They will look down on you. A weak creature invites attack.”

I gazed at the stone, sensing the vast magic slumbering within it. And how little that power signified for me. I nodded and closed the box. Her hands rose again to frame my face, firmer this time. Pain surfaced in her eyes, real and human.

“Forgive me,” she whispered. “This was not how it was meant to be. But we had no choice.”

I did not answer. I offered her a faint smile instead, for I had no strength left for her visions. She was drowning in her own world. I no longer wished to be part of it.

I left.

That was not the hardest farewell.

On my way, I strayed into the castle kitchen. I loved lingering there, stealing sweet cakes and listening to the gossip. The room stood empty now. I settled onto the wooden stool where I had once perched as a child. In those days, my feet had dangled above the stone floor, never quite reaching it. Today, I had to bend my knees to fit myself there. The thought settled in my chest, quiet and strange.

After a moment, my maid, Mirabel, walked in.

“My Lady,” she called. “Everything is ready. The ships await. Your father asked me to find you.”

“Where is everyone?”, I asked.

“They are waiting at the harbor,” she said softly. “The whole castle has gone to bid you farewell, my Lady.”