Casey Anderson isn't expecting much from her Mark - but when her soulmate turns out to be Prince August, the boy next in line for the throne, everything changes.
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In a world much like our own, Casey Anderson is trying to navigate her senior...
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In some ways, the magic hardly changed anything. It wasn't like discovering a cure for cancer or ending world hunger, or anything. People still die, and hurt, and kill each other. The world keeps spinning.
When something is so unpredictable, so unknown, when it doesn't have a purpose... Well, it's not like it's something you use every day or anything.
Leah loves magic, and it loves her. There's always something going on around her - for a solid month, her hair changed colours to match her mood. Then there was the tattoo phase, which, now that I think about it, was probably related to her Mark. She had ink curling over her collarbone and up around her neck, dancing over her arms and skirting the edges of her sleeves.
They changed, too, almost constantly - unpredictable to anyone watching. I don't know if they had anything to do with her mood, or thoughts. Leah was pretty angry, during that time. We didn't talk as much then.
Our parents don't talk about magic. Perhaps as a result of that, I don't hardly ever see it effecting them. My father attracts magic with displays of emotion, like the fire in his study.
My mother, however, I have no idea about. I think she hides it. I think she's scared of it.
Me, however? I dream.
I didn't notice the change, not at first, not until later, when everyone was cataloging every strange occurrence, every gust of wind and strange-looking pattern on the ground.
I always had vivid dreams growing up, bordering on lucid - like the one in the field. But after the Rift, after the magic, they -
Changed.
I probably never would have noticed if they had stayed the same. If they hadn't become what they are now. Darker, more vivid and intense, everything painted in shades of blood.
Dreams that physically hurt, that leave me shaking and retching. And I know that they should probably be called nightmares, but - I don't know.
I always dreamt, before. I never had nightmares as a kid. The times that I was scared were when I was awake. The darkness was always more frightening than the inside of my head. I was lucky.
Not so much now.
Calling them nightmares almost feels like admitting that I lost something, that I'm never going to get my old dreams back.
I don't talk to anyone about them. Leah thinks that the magic avoids me. My parents are probably just relieved that I'm not, like, bursting into flames on National TV or something.
That's probably why the Mark was such a surprise.
I've only ever told one person - Kinsey. They weren't exactly surprised. I guess they were waiting for me to tell them how the magic was affecting me.
