Because what happened next was impossible, or at least it should have been. She’d heard her mother’s cry of alarm—or had it been hers?—had felt the rush of wind through her clothes, seen the swirl of blue sky and white clouds and brown mud as the world turned topsy-turvy around her. And then…

A golden flash, like a brilliant ray of sunlight hitting you full in the face through a gap in the trees, except it had been all around her, blinding. And then…

“Then nuthin’,” she muttered. She’d found herself lying on the ground on her back, her mother’s concerned face floating overhead. She almost hadn’t looked real, like she was an angel that had descended from the Sky Forest, sent by Narcissi Herself.

“Think my back is broken,” Perfidy had said. “Cain’t feel nuthin’.” Which wasn’t entirely true. What she’d meant was she didn’t feel any of the pain that she should be feeling after a fall from that height. And yet she did feel her fingers and toes. She felt the coolness of the misting rain as it had begun to fall. Felt her mother’s arms around her as she’d pulled her to standing and then wrapped around her in the fiercest embrace she’d ever offered her.

The soldiers had come later that night. Members of the Knightguard, those who were supposed to protect her. Instead, they’d destroyed her, taken her mother away, accused her of all manner of vile things, the worst of which was practicing sorcery.

Perfidy had chased after them, beating on their armor with her fists until one of them had shoved her away, where she’d fallen onto her rear in the mud. Lanterns lined the road, all her neighbors peering out into the night to witness the rare spectacle, like it was their entertainment for the evening. “Which one of ye!?” Perfidy had shouted. “Which one of ye did this?”

No one had answered, and, one by one, the lanterns had disappeared back inside doors, until she was all alone in the dark.

A voice had startled her. “They don’t understand. I’m beginning to fear they never will.”