“Shadow” was an insult when I was born. Originally it meant someone who’d turned from the Light’s true path, but my first memory of it was a playground squabble, a classmate throwing the word at me in anger. I knew even then it was a dark word. Shadows were dark, cruel things, desiring only the destruction of all that the Light had brought us.

He was everywhere, that boy turned king. His face, wearing a beatific smile, graced every coin. His statue stood in the temple, twice as large as life, every detail rendered in pure white marble. My mother had a picture of him on the door; she bowed to it and said a quick prayer every time she left the house. 

In my youngest years, I believed the Emperor to be a mythical figure, a god who’d never truly existed. I remember believing that, though I cannot recall finding out I was wrong.

My name meant “light” then, as so many names did, in honor of our illustrious Emperor. In my village alone, there were a half dozen or so girls with the same name as me. I hated it in silence.

There were many things I hated, living in that little village. My name. The monotony, day after day after day doing the same chores and seeing the same people and reciting the same prayers. My certain future, marrying and raising children into that same dull existence. I would have said my existence became a prison, but then, I was a rather melodramatic child.

By the time I turned fourteen, I’d changed. I no longer remember exactly how I realized I had magic, I only remember the fear and confusion. I already hid feelings that I knew no one else around me shared, a shameful secret buried deep inside. To have magic, too… well, only nobles were permitted to learn that. I remembered the time a girl not much older than me had dared to use magic. I was nine at the time, she was eleven. I didn’t remember her name, but the memory of her face that day haunted me.

She never returned to class. Whispered rumors spread that she’d been taken to the capital, Solaris. Some said she’d be put on trial for her crime, a few imagined she’d be adopted by nobles. Nobody really believed that one.

All I knew, by the time my magic appeared, was the look on her face, the dawning horror when she realized what she’d done. I looked at my reflection and saw her.

Every day, I feared becoming like her. Every day, I felt it, like a need just beneath my skin, a hunger I could never quite satisfy. Sometimes, it would spill out. I was lucky that the first time, I was alone, and that after that I retreated from my friends. Alone in my room, at least no one could see when I lost control. At least I managed to keep it quiet. Even my mother never knew, for all that she tried to pull me from the shell I built around myself.

I had two secrets, then. I thought I’d take them to my grave.

I was wrong.