And this is where I come in.
My name is Ellen.
I am one of the Daughters of Insomnia—though not a full witch. Just because my mother was one doesn't mean I became one. At least, not in the way they expected. I am different from every witch who has ever walked these grounds. I was born with golden hair and eyes the color of dusk—purple, unsettling, and always watched. And at seventeen, I still couldn't cast a single spell.
But that wasn't the real reason they treated me like an outcast.
My birth was a mystery no one wanted to solve. Whispers followed me wherever I went, curling into ugly truths people preferred to believe. They said I was born of a wicked and dangerous king—the same king sealed inside the forbidden book. Their king. The darkness they were sworn to guard against. And if that were true, it meant the enemy's blood flowed through my veins.
That rumor alone was enough to stain my existence.
I was allowed to live among them only because of my mother's sacrifice. She gave everything to protect the book—to protect them—and for that, they spared me. But mercy is not the same as acceptance. To them, I was a reminder of a past they feared, a future they didn't trust, and a truth they refused to face.
They call him my father.
The king.
And because of that, no spell I failed to cast could ever damn me more than the blood they believed I carried.