Prologue





I am 15 years old. I have brown hair and dark brown eyes. Sometimes I have a big smile, but not often. I like to dress in black and red. I wear dark make-up and big, silver jewelry. I'm not really the friendly type, nor am I a fun person. I suppose I'm an outsider, but I don't care. I've got more important things to think about than if people like me or not. Things they have no idea about.

People say I'm just like my mother. I wouldn't know about that, I haven't seen her in years. Or my father, for that matter. I don't care, I'm better off without them. I live with my aunts and cousins in the family manor. They're the people I care about, not my parents. My parents don't care about me either, at least not in the way parents usually care about their children. They care because I'm a threat to them. And because I'm a threat to them, they're a threat to me, which means I can't be lead astray by any caring feelings I might have for them as my parents. So that's why I don't care, why I mustn't, can't care.

I'm not sure how things got to be like this, my aunts don't really like talking about it. All I know for sure is that my mom used to be a good person, just like them. But then something happened to make her change. I keep wondering what could induce someone to turn like that, but I've never been able to come up with any convincing reason. I'll probably never know.

She's a witch, my mother, one of the most powerful, one of the Charmed ones. What's more, she probably has the most power of the three, at least she does now. Now that she can just use everyone else to make herself stronger and doesn't have to think about the consequences. We could do that too, of course, but that would make us evil, and evil is our worst enemy.

And that in turn makes my father our worst enemy, for he is Evil personified. He is the Source. He was human once too, but now he's as far from it as possible. Apart from one thing.

He can love.

Whoever said evil couldn't love was wrong, or else they changed the rules, because my parents love for each other is stronger than anything else they have. My father could do that, change the rules. He's the most powerful Source since the beginning of time, and having my mother by his side only makes him stronger.

Which is why we have to kill them, and soon, before everything is consumed by their evil.

I am their daughter. I am the key to their demise.

My name is Pyralis, and the fate of the world is in my hands.