The Prologue to my romantasy book! (Title tba 😉)

Seventeen years ago, a beautiful baby girl was born on a dark, stormy night. Her parents rejoiced and named her Raven, for her hair—unnaturally shoulder-length at birth—was as dark as the midnight sky. It unsettled them, for both her mother and father had been born with silver hair. 

They raised her with all the love and patience they could muster. Still, as Raven grew, something in her began to shift. They often found her perched in the dark oak trees of the Whispering Woods. She would sit there for hours, staring into the fog. When they followed her gaze, they saw nothing but the mist shifting in the breeze.

“What do you see out there, my dear?” they asked her one evening.

“The shadows,” she said as though it were obvious. “Don’t you see them too?” 

At that moment, they knew. Their daughter had inherited the curse that had been dormant for generations. Raven could speak with the shadows. She was a Penumbra.

“Raven, love, do you speak with these shadows?” her mother asked gently, trying not to scare her.

“Oh, yes,” Raven replied, beaming with pride. “They’re my friends!” She paused, then, without another word, she bolted towards the woods.

Her mother turned to her father, blinking back tears.

“She’s still a child,” she cried, collapsing into his arms.

“We have no other option,” he whispered into her ear, stroking her silver-white hair.

“No,” she said softly, but they both knew what they had to do.

Later that night, Raven’s father slipped into her bedroom while she was asleep. He gently lifted her from the bed and savored the last moment with his daughter before carrying her to the forest.

“Daddy?” she asked him drowsily, not yet fully awake.

“Shh…” he choked out. When her breathing slowed down, he picked up the pace—traveling farther and farther into the woods. He laid Raven down on a patch of moss deep in the Whispering Woods, far away from their house, and planted a kiss on her forehead.

“Goodbye, my little Raven,” he whispered before fleeing the woods. No one knows for sure what became of little Raven or her parents. Some say the forest took her—that the curse overcame her. Others aren’t so sure. They believe Raven is still out there, at peace with the beasts of the wood. One can only wonder.