Chapter 1 Complete Hi. I do apologize. I actually forgot I had posted my story on this site. Letting you hang in curiosity for 2 month was a little long. I hope the entire chapter is worth waiting for. Thank-you for the wonderful replies. I have written the story through chapter 6 and will post at least weekly. Let's get this rolling. THE DAUGHTER OF THE SHADOW PRINCE Daughter of the Shadow Prince Chapter One The Severing Power Gallantide: Where the Rivers Meet the Sea in Melavaire Celine had always known the hum. For as long as she could remember, it had lived beneath her thoughts, steady as a second heartbeat. When she was small, she thought everyone felt it. They did not. Ten-year-old Celine sat cross-legged on a worn wolf skin in the library, facing her grandmother. Candlelight moved across Amma’s face as the fire crackled in the large fireplace behind them. Leather-bound books climbed the other three walls from floor to ceiling. Between them lay Celine’s miniature wooden cards. She turned each one while Amma finished a story from the Children’s Book of Illusions, which told of noble children with gifts like theirs. The Sentinels wrote the book before they condemned such magic as poison and began rooting it out of houses like the Ashwyns’. Before Celine could ask for another tale, Amma closed it. “Please read one more, Amma.” “Celine,” Amma laughed. “Greedy child. You must sleep before your mother arrives tomorrow.” At the thought of her mother and stepfather returning from his desert estate, Celine shivered. She studied the three cards she had drawn, each small enough to fit in her palm, then gathered them and climbed into Amma’s lap. As she rested against her grandmother, the hum passed between them, warm and familiar. Celine handed her the final card. “Please, Amma, I found a new one. I do not know where it came from. Who put it there? What does it mean besides hope?” “Little Moon, you know all your cards,” Amma studied it. “Where did you get the Hope card?”