I reached the age of twenty in much the same manner as the rest of my years had passed. I still saw my father weekly, so that he could take apart the meetings I attended. Praise was scarce from him, but if I made any kind of mistake I was reamed for hours into the night. I didn't care much though. My father wasn't the power he used to be; I was now. He still looked like the same evil old man that he had always been, but I could see it. He was more tired that he once was. He would pause in his rants at me just to take a breath, and the few times he had raised his hand to me, I hadn't backed down. He seemed to understand by the look on my face that I wouldn't be treated like a disobedient child any longer and did not hit me again after that.

I had taken to taking long walks after dark when I had turned nineteen. My father had once more told me that I could not marry and that no one would ever want a female of my ilk, and I had found that the walks calmed me and brought a sense of tranquility I had never known, not since that last time so long ago when I brushed my mother's hair and dreamed of being like her. But I wasn't like her, and I never would be no matter how much I tried. Instead I was the second most powerful person in the Upper Kingdom and now had a bigger voice in the council than most other members.

The kingdom had grown with my suggestions. War when need be, negotiation where necessary. People had begun to say that I was greater than my father had ever been, even the sticklers of the council had come around. In front of my father, my cousin had declared me the greatest mage the Upper Kingdom had ever seen. I stood prouder than even my brothers did with their promotions through the ranks. My sister still was a mere shadow, and yet was everything I wished I could be. Instead I grew colder inside, even the Indigo Guard did not have the same effect that he usually had. I suddenly didn't wake up and look forward to his being outside the door to haunt my steps throughout the day.

I had everything, but I had nothing. Nothing but a growing sense of cold pride and a drive to be the best and put my father's light to shame and make him be forgotten. I stopped seeing him weekly. No longer needing his advice or his words. I was smarter than he was. I had more power than he did in his prime. The only thing was that thus far I had not spoken with the Gods, though it was obvious to people that I was favored in the gifts of power, sense, and according to some people I chose to ignore, beauty.

By now I had begun to believe what my father had said about no man wishing to marry a woman who was elevated above her station. I always felt cold inside now. Only the long moonlit walks in the deep of night ever brought any warmth to me anymore. The moon was more friendly than any person had ever been to me, and during my walks I would talk to the Gods even if they did not answer back. I felt a better sense of familiarity to the Gods than I felt to any living person.

* * *

Now, the Indigo Guard would sometimes follow me on these walks, at a distance, other times I was utterly alone and by myself. And it was on one of those lonelier nights that was the worst of my life. It topped the night my mother was killed and would change absolutely everything. It was during the small hours of the morning. That time before dawn when it was silent, when not even animals stirred. I walked the roads of the city with a leisure that was not to be had during the daylight hours.

I had no sandals, as I enjoyed the feel of the cool sand beneath my feet as I walked back from the river, and so my feet made no sound. I turned down a narrow back street where the moonlight didn't shine on my way back to the palace where four of what seemed to be palace guards stood.

This was my usual path back on these nights, and so it didn't surprise me that it was me they were looking for. I thought perhaps something had happened or that someone needed me for something. But no one said anything, nor would they let me pass. I knew something was wrong when nothing was said, but I tried keeping calm, even when two of the guards flanked me so I could not go back the way I had come.

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When weapons were set aside while the soldiers had sickening smirks on their faces, I tried making a rush through the two in front of me, towards the end of the narrow street and towards home. Where before I had been reveling in the solitude of not having the Indigo Guard following me, I suddenly wished he had been. My rush was caught by my being shoved at the shoulders so hard that I was knocked off my feet and landed on my back on the ground. Before I could actually get up or orient myself, the two soldiers behind me pinned me down by the arms.

The fear I had had since I had been a child reared up. I now knew the fear my mother had felt, and it brought strength I didn't normally have. I managed to knock the teeth out of one's grinning face, and nearly broke free of the two who held me pinned. I bit, and scratched, kicked, cursed and spat in the eyes of any of them who didn't quite get close enough for me to sink my teeth into.

The result was a beating the likes of which I had never endured, until there was no sound coming from me and I couldn't move even to lift a finger against my assailants any longer. I could do nothing while the four used and violated me, only now finding out anything about the word 'rape', sixteen years after my mother had been killed. It was one subject that hadn't been in my many lessons.

I don't know how long it was until I was left in the narrow street alone, beaten with broken bones, bleeding in places I had been struck with whatever the four could find. I don't even know all of the damage they had done. When they had accosted me, the moon had still been low in the sky, now it shone into the narrow street of Waset. Not able to move, I passed in and out of awareness every few minutes, not quite able to lose consciousness, but not coherent either.

I don't know how long I was lying there in the street when I heard the sound of heavy running footsteps. Into my blurred vision came a dark figure from the direction of the palace. They slowed down and stopped before kneeling by my side and I turned my head just a little, trying to see through the fog who it was that seemed to be taking something off.

My eyes couldn't focus, but I apparently made some sort of fearful sound, and then I knew that voice as I was covered with the Indigo Guard's red cloak, saying that I was safe. I'd never been treated so gently in my life as when he picked me up from the ground. I had been beaten so severely that I couldn't even feel any pain or my body at all.

Being carried back to the palace was slow at first, but the Indigo Guard seemed to suddenly sense something while I struggled in the fog that threatened to consume me, and I can only guess that he began to run, because his stride wasn't smooth anymore. All I wanted was to go to sleep, but the Indigo Guard said I must stay awake, in a tone I had never heard from a person before.

After I don't know how long, I heard an impossible bang that made the fog recede just a little bit and I could see the blurred shape of the Indigo Guard had kicked in a door and the sound of my father's angry voice filled my ears, though I didn't actually hear what he said through the buzzing in my ears now.

I couldn't understand what was being said because I could only hear the sound of voices through the fog and buzzing that was getting thicker and louder. I was moving again, and the Indigo Guard spoke sharply in my ear to stay awake. To not close my eyes. I couldn't even make a sound to acknowledge that I understood. It got dark suddenly, though by then the sun should have been rising.

Then there were torches being lit and I was being gently set on a flat space that was freezing cold even though I already felt cold. I couldn't tell anything that was happening, struggling as I was now to not sink into the dark that beckoned like the kind of friend I had never had.

Just when I could not hear for the buzzing in my ears and the fog finally came up to swallow me, my nerve lit like fire and the buzzing went away entirely to be replaced with a dull roar, almost like the sound a bonfire makes. My entire body certainly felt like it had been lit on fire. I didn't even realize that I had lifted from what turned out to be a stone table until I landed on it once more with a thud that knocked the air out of me.

The stone table was cold as ice, and when I was able to open my eyes finally, I found I could see more clearly than I ever had before. The room was mostly dark but for a few torches, but I could see clear as if I were standing in broad daylight. Against one wall stood the Indigo Guard, and at the side of the table on the floor was my father. I got off the table, but there was an undefined knowledge that there wasn't anything I was capable of doing that would save that old man's life.

The only thing he said was to make him proud, but there was no emotion in me to be able to really register that he was gone until his body greyed and crumbled to ash inside his robes. I knelt down and picked up the pendant that he had worn for as long as I could remember. When I straightened up, holding the red cloak to cover my torn clothes, I caught the eyes of the Indigo Guard. I looked at him for a short moment before I simply turned and left what I now recognized as one of the ritual chambers.

I didn't know what my now dead father had done, but I knew somehow that in saving my life, he had in fact made me more powerful than any human ever would be. I was soon to find out that I was no longer even human.