Prologue: The Letter
Eleanor,
When you are finished reading this letter—if you even make it to the end—you will most likely want to throw it away. I urge you not to. Whether you realize it or not, reading this letter will open up your mind enough for you to make a journey in your sleep tonight. When you wake up tomorrow from that journey, you will want to read this letter again.
My name is Marion Rivers, and I am your biological mother. Your father, Robert, is beside me, helping me compose this letter. It’s a strange thing, writing to you on your eighteenth birthday when you’re little more than an infant in her crib, mere feet away from us. But we have to write it now, and we have to send it away with you. It’s not easy to travel between our worlds; we may never get another chance.
We need you to understand that we are sending you away for your own safety. You are a phoenix—one of the Six Senses chosen by the fates and the flames to lead the Beings of Light in the War of the Moons. You are more powerful than any other creature in Farnethia, and because of that, you have many enemies. On Earth, you won’t have any. We found someone who will care for you—a kindhearted young woman who was unable to have a child of her own. She will give you this letter on your eighteenth birthday, and we will pray that you will come back to us.
Your familiar will explain the details to you tonight in your dreams, but we must give you enough knowledge of the truth to awaken your magical instincts. Farnethia, the world you were born into—the world your father and I never left—is a world of magic.
Magic is not what you believe it to be. It is not some fictitious, abstract concept reserved only for imaginative children or the mentally deranged. Magic is simply the height of emotion. Its only source is the human spirit, though most of these spirits do not realize when they create magic. Love and bravery ignite Light magic—the kind that soothes the soul and mends the mind. Hate and fear ignite Dark magic—the kind that twists the soul and damages the mind.
Two hundred years ago, Dark and Light magic both wanted the same thing: escape.
Alexandria Bennett was a being of Light—a beautiful, English poet with a bright future. Peter Austen was a being of Darkness—a corrupt, American politician. When Alexandria went to America to complete her education, she met Peter in a diner. Neither resisted the relationship that followed; Alexandria had always wanted to fall in love, and Peter wanted a son to follow in his footsteps. But Peter did not expect to fall for Alexandria, and even she could not have predicted the pure, passionate love that bound them together.
With the merging of Darkness and Light came struggles that neither of them had anticipated. Alexandria was forced to lie and go along with Peter’s lies, knowing only that she wanted him to be happy; and at every decision he had to make, Alexandria’s voice was in the back of Peter’s mind, warning him not to do things. He developed a conscience; she developed a lack of one.
But it was too much for them. Their souls were being tainted and mutated, and they could not go on the way they were living; and yet, they knew they could not be apart. Their only chance at love and at life was to escape the pressures of their world.
The portal to Farnethia formed exactly two years after Alexandria and Peter met.
The moment their spirits entered Farnethia, they changed. Alexandria turned into a phoenix, the ultimate creature of Light. Peter turned into a dragon, the ultimate creature of Darkness. The only similarity that remained between the two was that they were Creatures of the Flames—strong, but dangerous.
Queen Alexandria and King Peter ruled Farnethia for a hundred years—on opposite sides.
Today, we have a Queen of Light who is not a phoenix. She is a faerie, with the simplest of powers but the wisest of minds. Queen Ava has vowed to do everything in her power to keep the Darkness at bay until the six Senses return to us, and your father and I have vowed to do everything in our power to help her.
We fight for you, Eleanor, and for the world we hope you will choose to return to. We pray to the fates and the flames that we will get to see you again. But if we die before you return to us, know that we died loving you, and that we will always be with you.
All our love,
Miriam and Robert—Your Mother and Father
