Prologue
My name is Katherine, also known as Kate. I'm 17 years old. That was the part that sounds normal about me. I wish I could stop there, lock away all the other information there is – information that makes me interesting. But I can't do that. So, my name is Katherine Helen Hathaway Belikov. I'm the only child of the legendary Rose Hathaway and the not any less legendary Dimitri Belikov. My aunt is the queen of the Moroi and I've been brought up at the royal court. But that's not even the funniest part, no that would be the fact that I shouldn't be possible – literally. Two dhampirs literally can't produce an offspring, so that makes me kind of a miracle. Even more amazing is that I'm a dhampir, wow.
You can say that my whole life has been a series of experiments; because everyone wants to find out how it's possible that I exist, and believe me somedays I do wonder that myself. Since my early childhood people have been making experiments at me. The spirit users like Sonya and Lissa have been looking at my blood, my aura and all of that shit. Doctors have been looking at my DNA, my bone-structure and my brain among other things. Though they've never found anything remarkable about me they all agree on that I have a dose of spirit in me. But what they don't know, and what they never will know, is that this spirit that I have in me is not so little, and it has somehow made it possible for me to control the elements – all five of the elements. I have stayed far away from using any of the elements, especially spirit, but recently it's been harder and harder to control.
Oh, and did I mention that in about one and a half year I'm supposed to graduate and become a guardian? As the daughter of two legends everyone expects me to pass the tests with the highest scores ever. You see how this might be a problem with the fact of my growing uncontrollable power, and when did I ever say that I wanted to be a guardian.