Rules Aren't Made to be Broken

Prologue

Sophie.

Sophie.

Sophie Foster clutched her head in pain. The voices wouldn't stop. Were they thoughts? Hallucinations?

Ruy Ignis stood before her. "Sophie, if you would just join me, you wouldn't have to suffer like you are now."

Sophie snorted. "What would I get if I did join you?

She could see it now. It was shady. She couldn't deny that.

"Sophie Foster! Stop dealing with the enemy!" a horrified voice said. 

Sophie turned around and paled. Councillor Alina aimed a melder at her.

"I always knew I couldn't trust you," Alina said angrily. 

Sophie protested. "But I'm - I'm not -"

Alina prepared to set off the melder. Sophie didn't know what to do. Her fear suddenly exploded, her inflicting throwing both Alina and Ruy to the ground.

Tears rolled down Sophie's cheeks in waves. That's what had started it. Started it all.

Her vision cleared and she realized what she had done. Sophie ran toward Alina, placing her fingers on her temples and ignoring the laws of telepathy completely. 

Alina's mind was confusing. Sharp angles and lines crisscrossed in strange patterns, arrows pointing to different floating memories. One zoomed to the front. Sophie talking to Ruy. She had to erase it. It just had to be done.

The memory suddenly moved. Sophie couldn't reach it as it danced around her, flying past and hiding behind another memory. Sophie recklessly dodged through the course of memories, not caring which ones she hit with her arm. She was frantic. She couldn't have Alina believing that she had been about to join the Neverseen. She would never.

The floor underneath her cracked. Sophie didn't know what it meant. She only knew she had to erase the memory.

Sophie reached out and leaped, grabbing the memory and smashing it in half. Was that what a washer did? She had no idea. The pieces scattered, some seeping into the floor and into the cracks. Some attached to another memory - the lack of trust in Sophie.

"Sophie Foster! And what do you think you're doing?"

Sophie panicked. Councillor Emery. That's when the mental room she was in completely shattered.

Sophie wiped frantically at her tears. She couldn't let her family see her like this.

Dealing with the enemy... defying the laws of telepathy... breaking a Councillor's mind and just barely being able to call it back...

"Sophie?" Amy called. "What are you doing on the floor?"

"We declare, as a near-unanimous vote by the council, that Sophie Foster be removed from the Lost Cities at once and erased from the minds of every single elf. Exile is no place for her. She will just escape Exillium. We have no choice but to place her back with her human family."

Sophie stood up and faced her sister. The flashbacks continued.

"Let this be our lesson to you, Sophie."

Sophie swallowed hard.

"Rules aren't made to be broken."