Chapter 1 Head Under My Foot

"Isabella! This is where it ends!"

Stella Thornton's voice cracked through the thin mountain air. Before Isabella could turn, a brutal shove slammed between her shoulder blades.

The ground vanished beneath her feet.

She pitched forward, the world tipping into a blur of wind and stone. Air tore at her hair, whipped it across her eyes. The cliff face rushed past in jagged streaks of gray and white.

Above, Stella stepped to the edge, her shadow spilling into the abyss. Far below, a restless sea of fog boiled and rolled, swallowing the light, swallowing everything.

"A whore's bastard pretending to be a Thornton? Don't make me laugh. I'm the only true daughter of this family. You should blame your cursed luck, Isabella--once you're gone, everything you have will be mine."

She brushed the dirt from her palms, crouched, and hurled two fist-sized stones into the void. They screamed past Isabella's head, close enough to stir the hair at her temple.

Isabella clung to a vine jutting from the cliff wall, lips curling into something between a smile and a grimace. She had told herself for years that she'd misheard--that no family could plot the death of their own blood.

But Stella's second attempt left no room for doubt.

She wasn't their blood at all.

Eighteen years earlier, Gareth Thornton and Julia Winslowe had a daughter—Stella. She was their miracle after years of childless marriage, but she came into the world fragile, barely heavier than a loaf of bread at one month old.

A wandering sorcerer from Cascadia took one look at her, peered into his crystal ball, and pronounced a sentence: she wouldn't live to see ten.

Panic. Desperation.

The sorcerer offered a way out—find another girl born the same month, steal her fortune, and Stella would live.

Gareth paid a hundred thousand dollars on the black market for a newborn girl just past term.

Her name was Isabella.

Stella's health didn't rebound overnight. Two babies meant double the work, and Julia's patience frayed fast. She began starving Isabella, leaving her to shiver in the cold.

To Julia's surprise, Isabella endured—and Stella began to thrive. More milk, more weight, fewer seizures. In Julia's mind, Isabella's suffering was medicine.

From then on, Isabella's life was hunger and frost.

Her earliest memories were of empty plates and thin blankets. One bitter winter, an old man defied the family and took her to his farm. She began to heal.

But every few years, Julia brought Stella to visit. And every time, disaster struck—snakebite, near drowning, even lightning.

One night, fetching water, Isabella stopped outside Stella's door.

"She's a stray no one wanted!" Stella's voice was sharp. "I'm not letting her stay in this house. Every time I hear a servant call her 'Miss Thornton,' it makes me sick. Dad, Mom, I want her gone before my birthday."

She added, "You're not going to start caring about her just because she's been here for a while, are you?"

In the middle of the night, Isabella had gotten up for a drink of water when she heard voices coming from Stella's room next door.

Julia, holding Stella's shoulders with concern, said, "What nonsense are you talking about? She's not worthy of our sympathy — not from me, and not from your father."

Her voice was smooth. "The sorcerer said you must survive five dangers. One remains. If she dies too soon, who will take the last one for you?"

"I don't care. Tomorrow I turn eighteen. The sorcerer said if I survive the day, I'll live to see the end of my years. She doesn't even know her true age. Tomorrow I'll lead her into the mountains... and she'll fall. I live. She vanishes. Deal?"

"Deal. Take your father's bodyguard, Asher Holden. Don't risk anything. If necessary, let him handle it."

Gareth's voice, mild and drowsy. "It's late. If Isabella hears us, we'll have trouble. Good night, my precious Stella. How about a bedtime story?"

"Of course, Dad. You're the best father in the world."

Isabella stood in the hallway, staring at the warm yellow light spilling from the room. Ice slid through her veins.

None of it had been accidents. Even her grandfather Jace losing his arm to lightning—saving her—had been part of the cost.

Everyone in the Thornton family, except Jace, was a monster.

She thought of running. But she wasn't ready. Eighteen years under their roof had taught her patience—and left her with the faint, foolish hope that she'd been wrong.

So when Stella invited her hiking the next day, she said yes.

Before that, she called her teacher in Cascadia, Jenny Manners.

"You stupid girl! Someone's trying to kill you and you still go soft? You're my student! With the protection and binding spells I taught you, you could kill your so-called sister a hundred times over!"

"Jenny, last time you said if I came to Cascadia, you'd take me in. Was that true?" Isabella's voice carried the faintest smile.

She wasn't fragile—just stunned.

"Of course it's true! When you were fifteen, stuck in that hospital bed after the avalanche, I told you your sister wasn't fate-bound to you. She was neck-deep in a curse of pure bad luck. And what did you say? That she was your real sister and you'd cleanse her. If I didn't like you so damn much, I'd have cracked your skull open just to check if it was stuffed with horse shit."

"Alright, Jenny, don't be mad. I've been learning witchcraft from you for years. If someone tries to hurt me, I'll fight back. I want to find my real parents. If I do, I'll ask them why they abandoned me. Then I'll come to Cascadia and work at Watts Academy, just like you said."

"I'll be waiting, Isabella."

The memory faded.

Hearing nothing above, Isabella began climbing down the vine. The rough fibers scraped her palms. Soon her boots found something solid.

"Down here!"

A deep, steady male voice rose from below.

Isabella looked down—and realized she was standing on a man's head.