Daughters of the Dawn by Sasha Nanua

Author:Sasha Nanua
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-06-20T00:00:00+00:00

Sahil

Where the Snake River was once my sanctuary, it now burns alive. Even my memories of it are set aflame, singed to ash as bitter as the air coating my lungs, my chest, and the empty space where my heart should be. If you were here, brother, perhaps you could have shielded my daughters with your magic, or twisted the Masters’ souls into ones of understanding and compassion. Something I now lose with every passing day.

Time blurs after it all ends, after we escape the water with nothing but the clothes on our backs, but the fire-singed memory remains. The harsh gale stretching the water open like a wound—my daughters, Raya and Ruhanya, barely escaping the next blast that licked the water’s surface. I knew too quickly what this was. A warning. What I didn’t understand was what my fellow Masters were warning me about. I was no danger to them, and still they hated me with every fiber of their being.

I didn’t need a reason why. I needed to run.

“Raya, Ruhanya,” I tell my daughters at our destination. Near the center of our continent, closer to the snakespeakers Amran formed with his own hands after my First Descendants, I feel much more at peace. The water was never our home, that much I now understand.

We need our own home. A place secluded and sealed with our magic. A protector.

Every day, I meditate over this spot. Part grass, part desert, the earth does not respond to my call, but the more I focus, the more I feel my magic threading into the ground, becoming one with it. Soon, with patience and the fortitude of my magic, we will have a home.

Days later, as I lay my hands on the earth and feel it rumble just slightly, as if curious about the magic within me, a young girl approaches to greet me, her eyes lingering on mine.

“Is that you, Preethi?”

The girl’s face, once chubby and small, begins to shift into an older landscape. Her eyebrows become thick and full. Her round nose elongates, and her lips thin, wrinkling into a frown.

No longer a girl but a Master. Preethi can affect the minds of others, even their memories, but she doesn’t often use magic to change people’s perception of her face—unless she doesn’t want to be seen.

“Sahil,” Preethi says, carrying a bundle of fabric. “I should have known you’d see it was me.”

I simply shrug. Preethi, unlike my other kin, speaks my name with respect instead of fear.

“I heard what happened.”

“The whole world has,” I snap. “It seems hatred has taken root everywhere.”

Guilt overtakes her features. “I haven’t been fair to you, Sahil. And while I’ve never hurt you or your daughters, I’m afraid I’ve done something worse.”

“What’s that?” I ask, still focused on the magic pulsing through my blood and into the ground, twining with every fabric of life, every stitch, every molecule.

“I’ve withheld the truth. The reason our fellow Masters despise you.”

“All but you and our lost brother, it seems.”

Preethi nods solemnly.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.