Sorrow's Gift

Chapter Thirty-One: The Witch

The witch watched as Karmen stared longingly at the others.

These people were so easy to read. They wore their emotions on their faces like badges of honor.

This girl, Karmen, obviously had a thing for Noah, even though he didn't return her affection. Still, there was a part of her that felt sorry for Karmen. When she'd touched her arm earlier, she'd seen visions of the horrible things the girl's father had done to her.

The witch understood that kind of pain. The pain that came from betrayal by the very ones who were supposed to protect you.

She hadn't expected to feel such a connection to Karmen. She'd judged her as a selfish girl with no concern for anyone around her, but the truth was that she kept everyone at a distance in order to protect herself.

The witch had done the same thing for most of her own life.

She was supposed to hate the guardians. To destroy them at all costs. But now that she knew more about Karmen's past, her feelings of pity confused her.

She wanted to tell Karmen to move on. No matter what she might feel for Noah, there was no hope of a romantic relationship with him.

Noah and Parrish had always been a couple, lifetime after lifetime. Whether they realized it or not, the witch knew the stories about the guardians. The leader and her lover. Their relationship and the sacrifices they'd made for each other were legendary.

Back home, the two sides didn't mix. The Iceborn lived on an island to the north, while the Fireborn lived on the southern island. The two races rarely spoke or mingled unless they had business in the Middlelands.

It was forbidden for an Iceborn and a Fireborn to fall in love and start a family. The danger of producing a hybrid child were simply too great.

Hybrids, capable of wielding both sides of the world's powers, were rare but extremely powerful. And extremely dangerous.

One power was often dominant, but the most disciplined and powerful hybrids had learned to control both sides, some even learning to combine them, creating an entirely new strain of magic.

After the Dark One was banished to the human world, the elders declared that the very existence of a hybrid was dangerous to everyone in their world. They created a law forbidding Iceborn and Fireborn to marry or have a child together. Any baby born a hybrid under the new law was sentenced to death, so for the most part, the people obeyed, afraid of a power too great for them to understand.

Legends say that before the war, most hybrids either went insane—killing everyone in sight and destroying entire villages with their rage—or they became too powerful for the Councils of Fire and Ice to control.

The Dark One had been the first, most powerful hybrid of all, threatening the Councils' rule. She'd been born back in a time when marriage between the two sides was still permitted. Before the world knew how dangerous it might be. When her parents discovered her gifts, they worked with her tirelessly, training her in both sides of her power day and night.

As she grew older and stronger, her abilities grew beyond her parents' wildest dreams. She wielded the very power of life and death. She could heal someone who had been pierced through the heart with a sword, bringing them back from the dead. And she could kill the most powerful sorcerer with nothing more than a flick of her wrist.

By the time she was an adult, there were whispers of her overthrowing the elders of both councils and becoming Queen of both kingdoms, uniting them for the first time under one ruler. The elders made the mistake of trying to lock her away, and their actions had started a war that lasted more than a hundred years, leaving both kingdoms in poverty and ruin for decades after.