Realization is a bucket of icy cold water over me. He smells me. If he figures out what I am, I’m screwed. My knees quiver, my blood rushing with adrenaline, but my legs don’t move. Both my feet are stuck to the ground like I’ve just become a part of it. Like I’m a tree, roots buried deep, unable to move away.
The wolf shifter narrows his eyes at me. “What are you?”
My throat clenches. He smells something different, but he doesn’t know what. I’m safe. At least safe from being found out. But my younger self hasn’t been through the hoops of being a Shadow Mage. She doesn’t know how dangerous it is, how everyone wants a piece of you. She has another sort of fear pooling in her stomach.
The shifter grins and lifts a shoulder. “We’ll figure out later. Someone surely will pay a handsome price for whatever you are.” And he makes his move. Fast, so much faster than I could react to.
My body locks in, his hands coming close too fast, then a body collides with his and both collapse to the forest ground with a thud. A scream climbs my throat, then dies out. My father sits up over the shifter and punches him once, twice. The shifter is too surprised to react for a moment. He gets his shit together and shoves my father off.
Father turns to me with wide, desperate eyes. “Run! Back to the house, now!” But my younger self is terrified. Her knees locked, hands trembling. I feel my eyes stinging with unshed tears, and I want to scream at myself to run. But I’m a child in this memory, and nothing I do can change the outcome of this.
The shifter gets to his feet, a smirk of sadistic victory across his face. “And I thought these were the borders of a witch city. You don’t smell like a witch. Just what in the world are you two?”
My mother bursts through the tree line, and her eyes find mine. She rushes to me, ignoring the stranger, and her arms fold around me protectively. This time I would have cried. This is the first time in my existence I feel loved, embraced by some semblance of family. And it’s only a memory.
“That is a witch,” the shifter says, pointing at my mother’s back. “But you two?”
“Get her out of here,” my father says, shooting a warning look at my mother. They exchange this glance that says much more than I can understand. My mother picks me up and races out of the path, into the trees. My face pressed to her neck, I fight with her hair to look over her shoulder, but I can’t see a thing.
From the sounds, though, the shifter is pissed. I hear the thuds of bodies crashing and falling, and the creak of someone hitting a tree. My mother strokes my hair down my back as she runs, my body bouncing in her hold, and then I hear nothing but her steps.
“What’s going to happen to Daddy?” My voice asks, out of my control.
“He’s going to be fine,” she says, but she’s trembling as we climb the front steps of a cabin in the woods and she puts me down. Mother rushes away, and I’m left by the threshold, gaping at the place.
It’s a tiny cabin, with one living room-slash-kitchen, one bedroom, a tiny bathroom, and a den. Though small, it’s bright with colors and decorations, from plumes to flowers and fabrics of all hues. I see toys strewn across the living room floor, books piled next to an old couch.
This place is so different from the apartments I’m used to. My apartments were bigger, but less lived in. Fancier, but never this happy. This place is alive and full of love. My heart wrenches in my chest.
Mother races to the den, where a desk is littered with books, notes, glass vials, and plants.A witch, said the shifter. That’s why we live in witch territory, even when my father is a mage.Wasa mage. Is this the memory of when everything went down?
She goes through her vials, looking for something. My feet take me to her and my hands curl around her knees. She touches my head in a motion that’s supposed to be filled with reassurance, but it doesn’t make me any warmer.
Then something explodes. It’s a weird sound, not the crackle of fire or the breaking of buildings. It’s a strangled, muffled sound, almost as if happened underground. Looking up, I see it when Mother’s face goes pale. She knows what it means. And it isn’t good.
She abandons her vials, turning to me with her pale lips parted. Mother knees and grips my shoulders with shaking fingers. “Listen, Cassie.” She brushes my hair away from my face. “Cassie. My beautiful, beautiful daughter.” And she smiles, a sad smile that is a knife to my chest. “Remember I told there might come a day I would have to ask you to hide?”
My entire body shakes. “I don’t want to hide. I want Daddy.”
“Daddy’s coming, but other people might be coming with him.”
And suddenly everything makes sense. Because I raced out of the protection wards, that shifter tried to kidnap me. Because my father intervened, because he tried to keep me safe, he had to use his powers.
The explosion a moment ago? It was his powers. Do my powers sound like that too? Like the pressure suddenly dropped in the room, like my ears are popping?
And now that Dad used his powers, people are coming after him. The same way it happened to me. And once again, because of me.
Mother picks me up and holds me against her chest. I hug her back, my hold unsure, and I scream at myself I should hug her tighter. I should let her know I love her. Should let her know I’m sorry. She strides across the living room to the couch. She lifts a cushion, then shoves a piece of fabric away to reveal a trapdoor. Mother opens it and then another one, a barred door in the ground. She places me inside the tiny space. Rock walls reach around me, suffocating. Tiny runes are scribbled all over, words I can’t read. Maybe spells. Protection spells. It’s still too small. Desperate anguish fills me, and I look up at her.
She smiles. “I love you.” And she closes the door. Darkness engulfs me as I hear her shuffling with the couch. Tears streak down my cheeks.
The door opens and closes. “Is she safe?” Dad asks. He’s out of breath and his steps are hasted across the wooden floorboards.
“Yes. Are they here?”
Father doesn’t reply. There’s heavy silence for a moment, then hell breaks loose. The door comes down, a loud crack, a scream. My body locks down again and I slam my hands to my ears. My father says something I can’t understand. My mother speaks in a language I don’t comprehend. Another explosion, this one of fire and pain.
“Stop!” a familiar male voice calls out. Who is this? Why do I recognize it? “Don’t hurt the Shadow Mage! I need him alive!”