Prologue

Once upon a time, Sethbe, the son of a spirit god, had an affair with Mathilda, a Light Fay Priestess, which resulted in a child. War was raging between the children of the gods: between those of darkness and those of light. Sethbe and his brothers, Liedte and Zienkhe, were overseers in the darkness. They could not have people know about the child. Mirrhia, a loyal servant of the brothers, took the child and disappeared before anyone realized that birth happened.

She made a quick stop at the brothers’ family temple in the middle of the Egyptian desert, to present the child officially to Ghar, the brothers’ creator, protected by the watchful eyes of the temple guardians. With the baby tucked in her arms, she then left into the night, without a trace.

August 8, 1980

Anita picked up Coralis in her arms and climbed up the stairs to take her to bed. In her eyes, Coralis was the best thing that ever happened to her, better than the night she accepted Donny as her husband and mate. She dropped her in her small crib and took a minute to admire her beautiful week-old daughter, then left the room. She had to get ready for the meeting with Lord Meozo.

Anita and Donny flew back from Egypt the day before. They wanted to stay there longer, but they couldn’t: it was time to come back home. Anita's pregnancy was over, so she could fight if needed. During the day, with the help of the CMMA Department of Family Affairs, Anita registered Coralis’ birth to the human civil registry. With a human birth certificate, she hoped that it would help Coralis live a normal life if something ever happened to them. Coralis wasn’t her true birth name, but she needed everyone to believe it was.

When she returned to the main floor, her friend Dorothy was waiting for her in the living room.

“Oh, you’re here already! I didn’t hear you coming in,” she said to Dorothy.

“Of course, you wouldn’t, you were probably fawning over Coralis again when I got in. Note, I don’t blame you, that girl is so cute, I would also have done the same without caring about anything else. Did you ward her room?”

“Yes, but just a basic one so Lord Meozo wouldn’t sense her. I don’t want him to know that she’s here.”

“He will ask questions and you know it. He knew you were pregnant the last time he saw you. If you try to tell him that you lost the baby, he will kill you for lying to him and all the wards protecting Coralis will dissolve the moment you die. Heck, he probably already knows her birth name!”

“I will do whatever it takes to keep her away from him. It’s bad enough that Donny and I couldn’t stay away, I do not want her involved in our mess.”

The women walked to the basement door and joined the others downstairs. Lord Meozo was there already. Even if he was trapped within a summoning circle, Anita shivered when she saw him and struggled to keep her hands from trembling. She hoped that she wouldn’t be forced to bring Coralis to him.

“Ahhhh Anita, my dear. It’s been a long time! How are you doing? I heard you and Donny couldn’t have produced a sweeter-looking baby,” said Lord Meozo.

“Hmm I’m good,” Anita said, giving a furtive look to her husband, who was standing across the room right next to the summoning circle. “Exhausted, but good.”

She didn’t want to talk to Lord Meozo about her daughter. If he asked questions, she planned on avoiding answering them by changing the subject and wasn’t above flirting with him. As much as she despised him, he was still their boss and they needed to stay alive.

“When will I have the pleasure of meeting little Corhaaliniakhys?”

Anita tried to remain calm and took a deep breath.

“We got more pressing matters to address. My daughter is asleep, this is not a place for an infant,” Donny answered before Anita could even think of how to answer the question.

Donny did not like hearing his daughter's birth name rolling out of Lord Meozo’s mouth. They thought they had been careful. If he knew his daughter's birth name, it meant one of two things, and neither was good. Either he managed to extract the information from his sister when she left his family temple in Egypt, as she was with them when they presented their child to the gods, or his connections with high-ranked demons were deeper than he thought. He didn’t exclude the possibility that Lord Meozo could be working for a god or that Dorothy, who was also there, betrayed them.

He was deep in thought when the meeting started. He wasn’t paying attention to what was being said and abruptly got pulled out of his train of thought by the sounds of a commotion coming from the main floor. His mind went to Coralis instantly. He looked at his wife, who was running for the stairs. Before she could reach the landing, a dozen agents wearing different uniforms erupted in the room, pushing everyone against the wall across the stairs.

Their basement meeting room was in chaos. Donny saw Dorothy standing in a corner away from them, staring at Lord Meozo, then realized that he couldn’t dissipate to leave the room: he was trapped in the summoning circle. He didn’t know how the authorities found out about this meeting, but he quickly figured that Dorothy was behind it and was trying to keep Lord Meozo in this room.

The Canadian Ministry of Mythical Affairs and the European Bureau of Elemental Energy worked together for years to destroy Lord Meozo and dismantle his operation. They have raided many of their meetings during the past few months, destroying countless supporters and followers, but they could never catch Lord Meozo. Finally, they were going to end this.

It only took them a few minutes to destroy everyone in the room, including Lord Meozo. They were all dead and in ashes, except for Dorothy. Before they left, she told them of a baby girl sleeping upstairs. The girl was the Golmars’ daughter: she had to be hidden.

Dorothy felt guilty for causing Anita and Donny’s deaths. She tried to spare them from being killed and was convinced she didn’t do enough. She also knew that there were a lot of people who would likely come after her so she couldn’t take the girl. Going against the couple's wishes in case something happened to them, she requested that her guardianship to Coralis be dissolved.

That night, another gathering of followers had been raided. One of Anita’s brothers was killed there, along with his wife. Agents found their 2-month-old daughter Nadilla sleeping in another room. The rest of Anita’s family was also under suspicion and Donny’s family could not be located, so it was decided that Coralis and her cousin Nadilla would be placed in the human system until they were of age to start elemental school.