“It’s debatable whether goblins are even sapient,” Witch Aimes began, and I already knew today’s ‘history’ class would be nothing more than thinly veiled propaganda. “What is known for certain is that they are a subspecies of humanity, twisted over millennia by their over-reliance on the witchcraft of mischief—yes, Cienne?” Witch Aimes radiated irritation as I raised my hand—and when a witch radiated irritation, everyone in the room could feel it. A careful, grating hum filled the class, aimed at me like a warning. I am a powerful person. Do not cross me if you value your continued existence.

“Goblins are sapient,” I said.

She arched an eyebrow. “And what evidence do you have for that?”

“What evi—I lived shoulder-to-shoulder with goblins for sixteen years in the Redlands! What evidence do you have that goblins are a ‘twisted subspecies’ of humanity!”

“I’m so glad you asked, Student Cienne.” Yikes. Normally I had to piss her off a lot more for her to get all formal. Or, wait, was this about the ‘Vile Magics’ discussion this morning? That might explain her mood. The witch reached into a space only she could see, arrogance swirling around her like a cloak, and pulled out a hunched, green corpse.

Bile rose in my throat.

“We know because of autopsies,” Witch Aimes said, her glare unflinching as she stood over the corpse of a person, and for a stuttering heartbeat she was not Witch Aimes but a far older witch, the echo of the despair that had ruined my home village—

###

Ice blotted out the summer sun, the magics of misery freezing the very moisture out of the air. My mother stood between the fragile wooden door and my quavering, curled-up form. Another building collapsed under the weight of the ice-witch’s onslaught, and I could hear his glee as our village’s despair fed his growing power.

“I don’t want to be here,” I whispered. “Mommy, I want to go home.”

My mother looked around the tiny wooden hut that I’d grown up in, the battered, creaking rooftop, the bitter, chilling cold, and didn’t have to say aloud that this was not our home anymore.

“It’s going to be okay, Cienne,” Mom whispered. “The witches—they can only see despair. If you—if you just stay calm and don’t panic, they won’t know where to find you.”

I tried, I really, really tried, I squeezed my eyelids as tightly shut as I could and pretended I was under the summer sun, but I heard someone shatter like spun sugar and I couldn’t do it I couldn’t do it I couldn’t do it it was all my fault and we were all going to die and the door smashed inwards like so much cheap glass—

“It’s okay,” my mother whispered as she stood. “It’s okay, Cienne. I forgive you.”

And when I opened my eyes she was gone, and the witch of frost stood in her place.

It was my fault. It was my fault. I hated myself so much, I felt so small, I wanted to shrink into nothing and hide where nobody would ever find me, and I waited for the snap of cold to end my life—

But it never came.

The witch of frost, by some miracle, didn’t see me in my hiding spot.

Later, I would understand why. Later, when the goblin tribe searched the village for survivors and kept me fed and warm until the Academy swooped me up, I would sort the events into a linear story. This is where my mother died. This is where the trauma unlocked something within me. This is where I wanted so badly to fall asleep and never wake up.

The goblins didn’t fight the witch. They would have been slaughtered like cattle. That wasn’t my darkest hour, in any case.

My darkest hour was what came next.

###

I stood, clenching my fist and feeling the delicately patterned ornament I held. A message from an old man who may have been a friend, who knew what it was like to grow up under the rifts.

“You have your corpses,” I hissed. “I have my life.”

The words of the old man dug into my palm.

They cannot take this from you.

I shoved my chair back and stormed out of class.