Summary

In Chapter 1, Zelie and her brother Tzain prepare their father’s body for his small funeral in Jimeta. Zelie’s magic, which was reawakened in a ritual during which her father was killed, begins to roar up inside her, but she pushes it down. She drops the burial oil and thinks that she has ruined everything, but then her best friend, Princess Amari, brings her more. Amari has a streak of white hair that indicates she has magic now, too. Zelie is distraught with the fact that her ritual brought magic back, not just to her people, the Majis, but to the nobles who had taken away their magic in the first place and then subjected the Majis to inequity and horrific treatment. Zelie lights her father’s coffin on fire and thinks of all the people she has lost, including Prince Inan...