I don't know when it happened. The moment I opened my eyes, everything seemed unfamiliar, strange, yet there was something hauntingly familiar about it. A heavy weight pressed down on me, and the first thing I became aware of was my body—small, fragile, as if I hadn't yet grown into myself. I could barely move, unable to control my limbs. My hands and feet were tiny, almost too delicate to be mine. I was… a baby. But not just any baby. Something was wrong. Something that hadn't been right from the start.
I could hear voices, distant and muffled at first, then gradually clearer as I focused. The first was soft and maternal, full of worry, and when it spoke again, I understood its meaning without words, as if it had been whispered directly into my mind. The voice was warm, familiar. "She's awake," the woman said, though I had no memory of her. A strange sense of recognition bloomed within me as I felt her gentle touch on my forehead.
"Is she… alive?" Another voice, cold and distant, rang through the room. It was a man's voice—strong, unyielding, but the sharpness of it made me shiver despite the warmth that surrounded me.
"She absorbed her twin," the healer said, her voice calm but tinged with awe. "This is a rare occurrence, my lord. Not one that is often seen."
Absorbed my twin? My mind was too clouded to make sense of what that meant, but the coldness in the man's voice sent a ripple of dread through my small body.
A moment of silence passed, and the man finally spoke again, his words colder than the frost that clung to the corners of the room. "A failure," he said, his disappointment clear, like ice breaking under the weight of it. "A dud. No power."
I felt it then—the crushing weight of his judgment. I was nothing more than a disappointment. A child who had been born without the spark of magic that defined everyone else in this world. Without powers, I was nothing. To the noble houses, to the kingdom, to the very people who surrounded me, I was just a burden. A failure who could never live up to the expectations of those who had hoped for greatness.
A small whimper escaped my lips, and I felt the warmth of a soft hand caress my cheek. "Elaine," the healer spoke again, "she will live. You must not lose hope."
My mother, Elaine Tempest, was the third wife of the Marquis, Desmond Storm. I had never known my birth father in the previous life I had lived, but the sting of rejection came sharply even now, as I realized that this new world I had been born into was one where I was not even considered important enough to be loved. In this life, my mother was a woman who had fought for the right to bear children, her status reduced by her position as the third wife, and her daughter—me—was now the living embodiment of her failure to give birth to something worthy.
In the weeks that followed, I learned the true weight of my birth. The storm had always been a part of me, inherited from both my mother and father, but the power that had been expected was missing. It had never appeared on my tenth birthday, the day when every other child in the house tested their abilities. The Power Stone, a device that measured the energy breath within one's body, had remained dark, still, unresponsive to me. My brothers and sisters all glowed brightly when their turns came, their powers evident in their abilities to shape weapons, run faster than any human should, or even control the elements. But when my turn came, the stone did nothing. And that was the moment I became the family's outcast.
No one could understand it—not even the healer who had witnessed the event. My mother, despite her protests, could not change the outcome. I had no powers. I was a dud, a child who had no place in this world of warriors and mystics.
The servants, once friendly and respectful, began to treat me with disdain. The household was filled with murmurs behind my back, and the whispers were loud enough for me to hear. "A useless girl, nothing but a drain on resources." I could almost see the disdain in their eyes. I had become a burden, and no one had any patience for me.
But it wasn't just the servants. My father, Desmond Storm, never looked at me the same way again. His cold gaze, once filled with expectation, now carried nothing but disappointment and disdain. He avoided me as though I were an inconvenient presence, something to be hidden away. I no longer ate at the same table as my siblings; I was given scraps, my food served last, as if I were a servant in my own home.
There were days when I wished I could escape, to leave the suffocating mansion and the cold silence that filled the hallways. I wished for freedom, for a chance to do something—anything—of importance. But there was no chance for that. No one would let me. The sects and schools that trained children with powers were closed off to me. I was not worthy of even a glance. They had written me off, and so had the world.
But my mother—Elaine—refused to let me live like that. She, too, had been cast aside by her noble family for reasons I didn't fully understand, but she had always been determined that I would not feel inferior because of my lack of power. She had taught me everything she knew about proper manners, about how to be a lady, and more importantly, how to survive. Her lessons on etiquette and reading, her quiet conversations about the world beyond the mansion, all shaped me into someone who could move through life with at least some semblance of grace, despite the ridicule I faced.
Despite my mother's best efforts, I felt increasingly isolated. The other young misses of the house—the legitimate children—would sneer at me. They would mock my clumsy manners, my lack of grace in the most basic skills, and the way I fumbled through lessons in etiquette. It wasn't my fault, I would tell myself. It wasn't my fault that I had been born this way. But no one else seemed to see it that way.
And the servants. They were the worst. I couldn't count the number of times I had been made to clean my own room when the others had their servants attend to them. I had been excluded from every family gathering, every important function. My mother was rarely allowed to attend as well, a woman relegated to the corner of the family's world. Her only purpose seemed to be to care for me.
One of the servants, a thin woman with a sharp tongue named Maris, often made pointed comments about me. She would say things like, "Such a waste of resources, the young miss. Always keeping to herself like she's too good for us," as if I were the one who had chosen to be different. She would look at me with such disdain, I could feel her judgment deep in my bones. She was always quick to remind me that I was nothing more than a "dud" with no future.
But I had learned to endure it. I had learned to bite my tongue, to accept my fate, even if it meant being left behind. Even if it meant being discarded. After all, I was no longer anything special.
When I turned seventeen, everything changed. A rare opportunity had come my way—a chance to explore the Absent Forest, a place rumored to be teeming with spirit beasts. I had grown used to the dangers of the world around me. I could fight, I could run, but most importantly, I was unafraid. I knew the dangers that lurked in the world better than anyone, and despite the ridicule, I had learned to navigate it. So, when I ventured into the Absent Forest to collect herbs for my mother's medicine, I wasn't expecting much other than the usual scrapes and bruises from fighting off the occasional spirit beast.
But what I found was a place I had never seen before—a place I shouldn't have been.
At the center of the forest stood Heaven's Lake, a mysterious and powerful body of water that was known to be eternally frozen. It was said to hold secrets that no one could comprehend. But when I approached, something strange happened. A caw—sharp, unfamiliar—echoed through the trees. Startled, I slipped, and without realizing it, I fell into the icy waters. I expected to hit the frozen surface, to crash down in a violent collision, but instead, I plunged deep into the water, as if the lake itself had swallowed me whole.
As I sank deeper, something awakened within me. A rush of energy flooded my senses, and a sensation of power I had never felt before surged through my body. For the first time in my life, I felt truly alive. And in that moment, I knew something had changed.
The power inside me rippled, stretching like an awakening beast. It was different—stranger than the energy that should have been mine. A burning sensation coursed through my veins, but it wasn't painful. It was a welcome, exhilarating fire. I felt as if I could command the very forces of the world to bend to my will, a power that had remained dormant for so long now awakened.
For the first time in my life, I wasn't just the girl who had no place, no future. I was something more.
This was only the beginning.