I was the SacraFortis family's long-awaited blessing, born into a world of wealth and power. My father, a self-made billionaire back then, held me up to the world as if I were the very sun that graced our lives. To be a SacraFortis meant to be born into a legacy of recorded powers, an unbroken line of dominance that stretched back through history. My family was not just rich; we were an empire.
Father used to tell me stories of our ancestors, mighty warriors, Conquers , rulers who bent the world to their will. He showed me the artifacts they left behind, encased in glass and surrounded by security stronger than most national treasuries. Swords that could cleave the heavens, amulets that controlled the tides, and rings that could twist minds with a mere touch. But those relics, as impressive as they seemed, were just that relics. Objects of a bygone era that no longer held the power they once did. In our modern world, they were more symbols than anything useful. Father's stories would always end with him looking at me, his eyes fierce and expectant, as if to say, "You are our legacy now."
And so, I was raised within the marble walls of our mansion, under the careful eyes of tutors and guardians. The opulence of my life was beyond imagination diamond-studded cradles, silk curtains that draped the vast windows of my nursery, and gold-threaded tapestries lining the halls. I was luckier than most could dream, and yet...
I still remember my days in the fourth grade. Timid. Shy. The very words taste bitter in my mouth now. How naive I was, how unaware of the expectations that lay upon my shoulders. Even then, the other children knew who I was. They sensed the legacy that clung to my name like a shadow, and they hated me for it. Their words were daggers hidden in the disguise of childish taunts: "Daddy's money!" they would sneer. "Bratty rich kid," they would chant. "Your money is the only voice you have."
Those were the days before my powers manifested, before I realized the depth of what lay dormant within me. In their eyes, I was nothing but a pretender, a spoiled child hiding behind her father's wealth. And the worst of it all, the taunt that lingered like a curse: "She doesn't even have any of her ancestors' powers, what a joke!"
Among those voices, one stood out above the rest, like a serpent hissing in the dark. Tasha Oksana Lebedeva. Her name still echoes in my mind, a sour note in the symphony of my memories. She was not just any child; she was the child of another billionaire, richer and according to her, better than mine. Tasha was everything I was expected to be but wasn't confident, commanding, the embodiment of power. Her father's wealth dwarfed ours, and she wore that fact like a crown.
Tasha was the queen of the playground, and the other children were her devoted subjects. They followed her every word, her every sneer directed at me. She had the power of crystallization...oh, how she loved to show it off. Her fingers could turn anything she touched into shimmering crystal....flowers, pebbles, even the tears of those who dared cross her. She would demonstrate her power with a casual flick of her wrist, turning ordinary things into objects of cold, glittering beauty. And with each display, her eyes would find mine, daring me to do the same. But I couldn't. Not then.
Her torment was relentless. She would gather her little court around her, and they would laugh at my expense. I can still hear her voice, mocking, cruel: "She's just a princess in a palace, but what is a princess without her crown?" Tasha knew exactly where to strike. She knew the legacy that weighed on me, the power I was expected to wield but had not yet found. And she exploited that vulnerability with the precision of a surgeon.
But there was one day... the day when she pushed too far. That day still burns in my memory, a turning point in the quiet storm that had been brewing inside me. She cornered me near the oak tree by the playground, her crystalline fingers glinting in the sunlight as she reached out to touch my hair. "Let's see if we can make the little princess shine," she said with a smile that chilled my bones.
Something snapped inside me that particular day.