She snapped her eyes wide after what felt like hours of deep and long sleep. The wooden roof came into focus as her chest rose and fell with rapid breaths, her face drenched in sweat.

Her last memories flooded back.

The castle had crumbled in flames, the stench of smoke covering the entire kingdom. Bodies of her clan lay scattered in pools of blood as beasts slaughtered them mercilessly.

She pushed her mangled body forward, breath ragged as her strength faded. Strands of silver hair stuck to her bloodied face, and her torn dress barely covered her wounded body.

Still, she clenched her teeth and kept moving, protecting what was hers or what was left of it.

'I will never fall.' That was the oath she had repeatedly sworn to herself, but still, darkness had swallowed her.

Her fists tightened against the floor as bitter words escaped her lips. "It was my fault. I wasn't strong enough."

She frowned when a thought struck her mind as she stared at the roof.

Her trembling hands moved to her stomach. The pain of her torn flesh still haunted her, making her fear what she might find. Nothing.

She moved to her chest and all the other places she remembered being torn open.

No wounds, no pain, not even a flicker of blood. It was as if the attack had never happened.

She was still breathing, her heart pounding loudly. 'I... survived?'

She remembered clearly, her body had fallen limp on the ground after she had drained herself, so weak to summon any magic, even for healing. Besides that, her wounds had been too severe.

She jolted upright. 'Someone helped me?'

Then she moved her eyes around the room.

A small, cramped room filled with the stench of dust and neglect. Spider webs decorated every corner. A closet, what was supposed to be a dressing table, and a bed.

This wasn't a cave where her body should have rotted, nor a prison, nor her room. Her brows furrowed. The room was too unfamiliar for her to guess where she was.

The last person she had seen before closing her eyes was that beast. Its red eyes still gave her shivers. 'He wanted me dead more than anyone. There's no way he healed me.'

Her brother? No, she had seen him die in front of her. When she remembered her family, her nails dug into her palms. Why should she care how she survived? This was her chance to make those beasts pay with their blood.

She wanted to believe people from her clan had helped her, but she dismissed that thought. No one would dare put her in such a room. Besides, she couldn't sense any magic around.

Unless the pure magic clan had found her. No, those fools were too afraid of her. If anyone would have been happy about her death, it would have been them.

She scanned her body. She was wearing a plain, flowing white dress. Her frown deepened. Someone had stripped away her black mantle and black dress... no, something wasn't right. She felt strange in a way she couldn't point.

She raised her hands. They had somehow become slim and delicate. Her nails were pristine, not like the black ones damaged from dark magic. Not like her rough arms that had crawled through blood as the queen of witches.

Slowly, she dragged herself to the dressing table. Through the mirror, a petite girl stared back. Long, curly chestnut hair instead of striking silver, wide light brown eyes instead of hazel, only the golden brown skin remained familiar.

A cold chill ran through her. That wasn't what she was supposed to see. Unless the mirror was mistaken in reflecting whoever she was.

'What have they done to me?'

What kind of spell was that? Hallucination? Disguise? Nothing made sense.

She seized a strand of hair, staring at it. Just like in the reflection, her hair was pale brown. Her forehead wrinkled in disbelief. What was she seeing?

She was still herself, she felt herself, the touch, her vision, what she heard and smelled but the face wasn't hers. Not only that, her entire exterior was different.

She should have known something was wrong when her muscles stiffened only after waking. As someone who pushed her body past its limits daily, that unnatural weight shouldn’t have been there. This wasn’t fatigue, it was as if the limbs she moved weren’t hers.

Her teeth gritted as she slammed her palm against the mirror, cracking it. Blood streamed across it from her palm. Through those red cracks, she could still see that face.

"Who are you?"

Suddenly, a voice wrapped in growls echoed closer to her ears. "You're not her. Witch... what have you done?"

Immediately, she turned her head around the room. The voice was close, almost as if whispered in her ears. However, no one was there.

The owner of the voice, the one behind every bizarre thing that had happened to her and was about to regret it.

An invisibility spell?

"You are here. Where is Nalath?!"

Nalath?

"Show yourself," she coldly ordered with warning. Her stance shifted, ready to face whoever the person was.

Immediately, she uttered words to open her third eye, the one that helped her see what couldn't be seen with normal ones. Only a gust of wind hit her, but nothing happened.

She remained as she was for minutes, trying to believe what had just happened. When she chanted another spell, then again and again. Nothing, now not even a flicker of wind.

She raised her trembling hands. She could feel it. Her magic was gone.

She, Radella, whose powers had given her the queen title, the strength that had taken her years to build, had been stripped of everything in the blink of an eye.

'Who dares do this to me?'

She fell to her knees, grabbing her chest as she suffocated, as if her soul was being ripped apart. What had happened to her?

And as she thought of the one responsible, her eyes glinted darkly. "You should've left me to rot."

Her reddened eyes, blazing with anger, darted to the window where moonlight slipped in.

She pushed herself from the floor and stumbled toward it. Standing there, she glanced outside and froze, frowning deeply.

'What is happening? Where... is this place?'

People roamed around. Too many for a village, yet too small for a town. A clan?

She knew every worthy clan, but this place was unfamiliar.

It was nearing midnight, yet people bustled left and right. The territory stretched far.

Where was she? Was this human territory? But humans existed far from their races and despised those different from them. She couldn't even sense any magic, and she knew a pack was far from an option, they wouldn't have left her alive.

She wasn't even restrained, nor did anyone tense upon seeing her. Did they really not recognize her, or was she no longer a threat?

It wasn't merely her body that had been tampered with. Her abilities had been severed, and this place was nowhere she recognized.

"Did you believe replacing her would grant you a new beginning?" The growl deepened. "This is your downfall."