​"Listen," the Queen whispered coldly in the dark corners of her throne room, calling her royal maids forward. "Spread this news. Psspsspss..."​"As you wish, Your Majesty," the maids replied in unison, slipping back out into the shadows to poison the continent.​The memory dissolved, bleeding into a terrifying pitch-black night.​The boy woke up with a gasp. His heart was pounding out of his chest.​A loud roar broke the silence outside their small hut. But this time, it scared them. In the middle of the night, there were hundreds of people out there. No, listening to the stomping feet and the hateful screaming, there must be thousands.​"Mom?" the boy asked sitting up in his small bed, his whole body trembling. "Why are there sounds outside?"​"I'm scared, brother," his sister sobbed, clutching her blanket to her chest as orange light from fire torches flickered through the cracks in the wood.​"Kill her! Kill all of them!" a vicious voice roared from the crowd. "They are taking our

The pain was entirely new.​When I was a mosquito, pain was just a blunt pressure against my hard shell. A warning sign. But this? This was completely different.​The shadow spike had only clipped my shoulder but my new human flesh tore open like paper.Hot blood instantly soaked my shirt. The air hit the open wound, and it felt like someone was holding a lit match directly against my exposed nerves.​"Ahhhh!" I screamed grabbing my shoulder. My human vocal cords ripped the sound from my throat.​"Zilu!" Midnight yelled from the pile of rubble. "Get up! He is right behind you!"​I tried to push myself up off the floor. My brain fired a desperate signal to my four middle legs to push my body weight backward.​But I didn't have four middle legs anymore.​My body simply jerked awkwardly. My two fleshy arms gave out under the strange new weight of my human torso, and I collapsed face-first into a puddle of my own blood.​"Get up!" Midnight shrieked.​"I'm trying!" I coughed spitting a mou

The air in the room suddenly shifted. ​It was replaced by the scent of morning dew. The smell of fresh rain on dry earth.​A golden light pierced straight through the oppressive black clouds of the Chancellor's dark magic.​Right in front of the kneeling souls, the air shimmered and split open.​I held my breath.​A woman stepped out of the golden light.​She wore a simple faded dress. Her feet were bare stepping lightly. ​Beside her, holding her hand tightly was a little girl. ​"Mom?"​The Chancellor’s voice broke completely. It didn't sound demonic anymore. It didn't sound like a thousand-year-old tyrant. It sounded exactly like the terrified little boy who had woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of an angry mob.​He slowly lowered his hands from his ears. The darkness that had coated his skin for centuries began to flake away, revealing the trembling tear-streaked face of a broken man.​"Mom... is it really you?" he sobbed.​Witch Shanan looked down at the tyrannica

​The courtyard was packed.​Thousands of people were standing out there. They were the survivors. The citizens of the Spire, the prisoners, the low-level guards who had broken free from the Chancellor's mind control. They were covered in dirt and blood. Many were heavily bandaged, leaning on each other for support.​The moment I stepped out of the shadows and into the dawn light, the murmuring completely stopped.​A heavy silence fell over the crowd. Thousands of eyes locked onto me. I shifted uncomfortably, suddenly very aware of how terrible I must look—barefoot, my shirt torn, covered in dried blood with a small black cat perched on my shoulder.​Then a man in the front row dropped to his knees. He pressed his forehead to the ground.​A second later, the woman next to him knelt. Then a group of armored fighters behind them. Like a massive wave rolling across an ocean, the entire crowd dropped to their knees in complete unison.​"Whoa," I took a step back. "Hey. Hey, stop. What are

​We spent the next few hours walking here and there. The more I saw, the more my heart ached. The poverty here was systemic and deeply ingrained. The Arch-Chancellor had kept these people living in absolute squalor to ensure they never had the energy or resources to rebel.​There were no proper wells for clean water. The housing consisted of rotting wood and rusted sheets. The soil was completely dead, poisoned by centuries of dark magic runoff from the Spire.​As I walked, a young girl, no older than seven tugged nervously on the hem of my ruined pant. She had big eyes and was holding a small bruised flower.​"For the Dawn Bringer," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the sound of hammers hitting stone.​I crouched down, ignoring the sharp pain in my fractured ribs, so I was eye level with her. I gently took the flower from her dirty hands.​"Thank you," I said softly. "It's beautiful. What's your name?"​"Elara," she mumbled looking down at her muddy toes.​"Well, Elara, I