The Hex

Chapter One

    Seven Years Later

Elizabeth's red curls bounced up and down as she made her way down the halls, attempting to ignore the stares from servants. They tried their best to keep their eyes away, but the girl's presence always raised questions. She'd lived so many years without her birth mother, without a real presence from her ailing father, yet she remained optimistic. Her current mother didn't much care for her-- nor did her father, for that matter—yet she never let any discouraging words break her spirits.

Then again, to them she looked normal.

Elizabeth couldn't quite remember when they'd first started growing in, but her lady-in-waiting had screamed bloody murder when she'd seen them. They protruded from her back, now too large to be covered by any sort of gown or coat. That was when she first learned of her power.

In confidence, her lady-in-waiting had told her of her mother's tricks, forcing people to keep their mouths shut before she was caught. It always served as a cautionary tale, reminding her that the little spells and charms she'd learned from her mother's books were not to be practiced anywhere but behind locked doors. Each morning, she'd think of her wings vanishing, and the stone around her neck would begin to tingle before they faded away. No one else saw them, somehow.

"Ela?"

She picked her head up, meeting eyes with her current mother. In the ten years she'd been alive, her father had gone through five wives—if you counted her birth mother. Some, like Anne, were barely around before being cast aside by her father's judgement. Another died young, and yet another met the same fate as her mother—ironically enough, she was her mother's cousin. Every now and then, Elizabeth caught the whispers of those who didn't believe it would last, that'd she'd end up just another head or disgrace before wife number seven strolled in.

It's not that Catherine was unkind—on the contrary, she treated Elizabeth and her siblings very well—she just had always been wary of Elizabeth. Everyone suspected she was just like her mother. And while that was true, it hurt Ela to think people despised her because of it. Her own father couldn't look her, not because of who she was, but because she reminded him too much of her mother. He loved her, yet despised her at the same time.

"Your lady-in-waiting has been looking for you. Something about your lessons? I haven't a clue, just see to it you find her quickly." Elizabeth nodded and curtsied before Catherine, then rushed off to the chambers where she met to learn. They had once been her mother's, untouched out of fear some hellish beast would be set free upon opening the door.

Nothing of the sort resided inside. Instead, there were towering bookshelves, filled with forbidden scriptures and texts of spells and crafts, meant to enchant and bewitch the mind. Her mother had reportedly studied them for years, trying to learn every secret of the trade. Ela couldn't blame her mother for her intense fascination with these sort of things, either. She'd already learned to make objects levitate and how to throw them—an ability buried in her blood from her mother, according to her lady-in-waiting. She wanted to learn how to change people's minds next, so she could make everyone realize she wasn't the monster they all perceived her to be.

Despite the heavy weight of the wooden door, it closed quietly behind her, as though made of feathers. The lamps in each of the corners gave the room an eerie glow, but if anyone else entered, it would simply be an abandoned bed chamber.

"Good after-noon, your Highness." Elizabeth smiled and reached out to pet the top of the black raven's head.

"Good after-noon, Dmitri. Is mother ready for me?"