Exhausted, I sink to the floor against the stone wall. With my feet drawn up, I wrap my arms around my legs and rest my forehead on my knees. Although I am sad and would like to cry, the tears do not want to flow.

I feel empty - empty and alone. I had not realized how alone one can feel in a huge castle full of Lux.

I lose all sense of time. I cannot say whether two minutes or two hours have passed. But suddenly I feel that I am no longer alone in this remote corridor of the library.

Who else gets lost here besides me?

I look up and see a young woman gliding down the corridor. She is bathed in the silver-blue light of my soul magic, but that only makes her seem more beautiful.

Her long, silky hair flows behind her back and her gaze radiates a kindness and goodness that melts anyone's heart. She can't be much older than me, but she seems so many cycles more mature. She stops in front of me and smiles down at me.

»Why are you crying?« she asks me in a voice that sounds supernaturally beautiful even to my ears.

»I'm not crying,« I answer. But my voice gives me away. It is brittle and shaky.

I nervously brush a loose strand of hair from my face and feel a wet trail on my cheek. Apparently a few tears have flowed after all.

»Not now, anyway.«

The young woman's smile becomes even more compassionate, if that's even possible.

»Why don't you keep going?«

I look around, confused. »Where should I go? There's no door here.«

»Of course there is a way here.« She points to the wall behind me.

I almost twist myself trying to see what exactly she is pointing to, but there is nothing there but the stones of the wall.

»Shall I show you how to open it?« she asks me, as if she could read my mind.

Of course she can read my mind. Her body is made of my magic. So she is a part of me.

»I am not a part of you,« she whispers.

Okay, that's not scary at all. I stand up a little awkwardly and look at the wall. The silver-blue figure stands right next to me, but is careful not to touch me. She is a little taller than me and definitely more intimidating. She looks at me and I quickly turn my gaze back to the wall in front of us.

»I don't see a door,« I say naively.

»That's because you're not looking properly.«

How am I supposed to look properly?

I squint my eyes, hoping to see something that I've missed so far. But no luck.

The stranger next to me starts to smile. »That's not what I meant. Even though it was a very amusing sight.«

I roll my eyes. Now my own magic is laughing at me.

»That's exactly what you're supposed to use to see.«

I look at her in surprise. »What am I supposed to use to see?«

She laughs again. »Your magic, of course. How else do you see?«

»I usually use my eyes.« Seeing with my magic...

»What does that mean?« I ask the stranger, but she's already disappeared.

It's as if she had never been there and I'm still just as far away as I was before. So, seeing with my magic...

How do I see with my magic?

I know how I can use it to sense things in my surroundings, but that's all. Maybe that's exactly what she meant.

I close my eyes and concentrate on the simmering fire inside me. This power within me is simply incredible. What I could do with it...

I shake my head and immediately banish these thoughts. But they don't disappear, they nest somewhere deep in my subconscious, waiting for the right moment to emerge again and seduce me.

Slowly I let a part of my soul magic flow out into my surroundings. It greedily searches everything in its path for emotions it can absorb, memories it can feed on or souls it can touch.

It heads unerringly towards the wall opposite me...and penetrates it effortlessly. It shows me what is behind these stones.

A narrow, twisted staircase leads deep down. I don't have time to count the steps, it glides over them so quickly. But then the staircase ends and I see where it leads.

A large, round room spreads out in front of me. I only take a quick look at it before I open my eyes wide in surprise.

That can't be...

That's impossible...

My magic comes back to me so quickly that I stagger back a step. To avoid losing my balance, I even stretch my arms out to the side. Breathing heavily, I straighten up again.

The massive stone wall is still in front of me, but I now know what is hidden behind it and, what is probably much more important, I know how to get through it.

I walk purposefully towards the wall. I put my hands on the rough, cold stones and let my magic slide from them into them. At first nothing happens, but then the wall begins to change. But you can't see that from the outside. But I can feel it.

The wall no longer blocks my access. Breathing deeply, I gather all my courage and walk through the massive stones. The steps stretch out in front of me, just as my magic showed me. Narrow and steep, they lead downwards. Unlike before, however, this time I cannot see where one step ends and where the next one awaits me.

It is so pitch black that I only venture forward very slowly and carefully, one step at a time, using the wall under my hand as a guide. Suddenly I reach into the void.

The wall has disappeared and given way to the round room. At least that is what I assume, because I still cannot see anything. I take the last step and as soon as my feet touch the floor, the room becomes bright.

A light source that I cannot locate seems to react to my presence. For the first time, I can take a proper look at the room.

I am actually in a rounded, underground, secret... study. There are bookshelves and old paintings on the walls, but the clear home of this room is the huge round desk in the middle.

Scattered all over it are individual pieces of paper and pens and books. A chair stands on the other side. It looks as if someone had just gotten up and stopped working here a few minutes ago, if you ignore the thick layer of dust that has settled on everything.

I approach the desk curiously and look at one of the open books. A feather lies in the middle of the empty pages. I carefully put the feather aside and leaf back through the book. Contrary to my assumption, these pages are not empty.

Elegant, ornate letters are crowded together and tell a story, repeatedly interrupted by numbers and some kind of time indication. But these details cannot be correct, because if they were true, then this book would have been lying here for a thousand lunar cycles.

A child's laughter distracts me from the book. It is the same laughter that led me to the wall. I let my gaze wander attentively over the various paintings. They all show different representations of our world or portraits of noble Lux. I finally find what I am looking for in the painting directly opposite the stairs.

I walk around the table, my gaze fixed on the subjects. It is a portrait of four Lux.

A tall, handsome man with blond hair and blue eyes is wearing a black suit. A magnificent silver crown rests on his head. His right hand rests on the shoulder of the child in front of him, while his left hand disappears behind the back of the woman next to him.

To his left stands an elegantly dressed woman. She even shines in the painting in a silver long dress with a red flame pattern. Her fiery red hair is braided into an elaborate hairstyle, perfected by a filigree silver crown. She too has placed a hand on one of the children in front of her.

I forget to breathe when I see these two girls. They are twins who are the same except for their hair color. Both are petite, small and wear elegant red dresses with silver crystals. Their hair falls in light waves over their backs.

But while one of them has hair as black as night, the other's hair shines in a brilliant silver-blonde. Both wear delicate tiaras and look at me with ice-blue eyes. Ice-blue eyes that are so familiar to me because they look at me every day from the mirror.

The portrait shows the first royal family of the Lux, Queen Aurora with her prince consort Zam and her daughters. The girl with the silver-blonde hair is Princess Andriana, my ancestor. This means that the girl with the black hair must be Princess Kadira.

There are very few pictures of her in the palace. No one knows exactly what happened to her, because from one day to the next she is no longer mentioned in any records, as if she had never existed.

Kadira was born first of the two and should have become the second queen of the Lux. But fate apparently had other plans, because after Aurora's death her second-born daughter Andriana became queen of Aquilia.

Only now do I look more carefully at the other paintings. The drawings on Andriana's side show the structure of the Lux community, as well as her coronation ceremony. The other side of the room is defined by warlike drawings. The pictures are in dark tones and show the development of the shadow warriors up to their attack on the palace thirteen lunar cycles ago.

»That's impossible,« I whisper and approach the painting.

It shows the entrance hall of the palace, shortly after Enis was murdered and I took care of the shadow warriors... or rather, when my magic stole their souls and killed them.

»Since when is anything impossible in Aquilia?« I suddenly hear a voice ask behind me.

I turn around abruptly and find myself facing the young woman who showed me the entrance to this room. This time, however, I can see who she is. Opposite me is Andriana, or at least what is projected of her by my magic.

She is wearing a thin, light summer dress. Her hair falls loose over her back and her forehead is adorned with a vine tiara.

»How can you be here?« I ask her, astonished.

She smiles and looks at her own hands. »Isn't that obvious?«

»My magic...« I begin, not knowing how I want to finish this sentence.

»It's stronger than you think,« Andriana helps me.

»I don't know if I can control it,« I admit.

»Does that matter?«

»It could kill everyone I know.«

»Or it could save everyone.«

Now I'm confused. »Who needs saving?«

She looks at the painting behind me. »The question is, who doesn't need saving?«

That's not really helpful.

»I'm not here to answer questions you already know the answer to.«

»What?«

»My mother always said 'that means pardon me,'« she quotes, smiling, lost in thought.

I can't imagine where her thoughts are wandering. But they can't go far away, after all she's just a product of my magic.

»And that means I can't remember my childhood anymore?« she asks me, now apparently back in the here and now, as far as she can.

»You can read my thoughts,« I say unnecessarily.

»Don't act so surprised. You yourself believe that I'm a product of your magic. And isn't your magic a part of you?«

Why do the ghosts of the past always have to ask such questions?

Can't they just speak plainly?

»We're getting off topic.«

»Why did you bring me here, Andriana?«

»Isn't that obvious?«

»Would I ask then?«

»Yes, you would.«

Which she's right about...

»Well, first of all you should know that it wasn't me who lured you here. It was my sister Kadira. Back when she still lived in the palace with her family, we always played hide and seek together in the library. One time we noticed this room. It was my mother's secret study. This is where she always wrote in her diaries.«

As Andriana tells her story, she walks around the table and runs her fingers over the individual pages, leaving occasional silver-blue marks.

»We never understood why she made it such a secret. It was only after she died that I realized it. My grief drove me here and I read her thoughts. She knew what was going to happen and didn't want anyone to ever know. I left that room and never came back. I didn't tell anyone about that place and over time it was forgotten. As it should be,« she finishes and stops talking.

Silence falls over the room.

»Then why did you bring me here?« I finally ask when I can't stand the silence any longer.

»I didn't bring you here,« she corrects me, her eyes showing pure anger.

»Maybe you didn't lure me here, but you showed me how to open the door,« I correct myself.

Andriana's gaze softens again. »That's true. It's important that you understand something.«

She walks quickly toward me and stops so close that I can see the magic holding her body together.

»History will repeat itself. What once was will be again and you won't be able to stop it, no matter how strong your magic is.«