The Ceremony

The ceremony has been performed for hundreds of years now, an attempt to take away all of the magic that lived inside young girls. Soldiers cut scars into their skin, caring only to hurt the girls more than they ever thought possible. The point was not to kill the girls, though that was an unfortunate side effect of the ceremony.

Hidden away from the town, Natia gave birth to Mareta. They lived a quiet life outside of the village, shamed by everyone for Natia's mistakes. So cut off were they from their quiet town that nobody knew Mareta existed. Natia hid her from the ceremony that took the lives of so many children thinking that her powers would never come in.
Until one day, they did. Natia knows Mareta must be cut off from her power to save her from death sought by bloodthirsty townspeople.
Mareta knows she needs to give her powers up to go back to the quiet life she's always lived, but she can't seem to find a problem with the powers that do only good.

Eli has more secrets than he can begin to tell Mareta, but he knows that he must protect her at all costs. Nobody can know the power she has. He makes it his mission to hide her and get her somewhere she can be safe. But the secrets he's hiding might just be their undoing.