Chapter One

I think I met my mother once. I was only six, but that didn't stop the Headmaster, Beltis, sending me to the central market to bring back exactly seven potatoes for the rest of the Eremos who shared my miserable existence at Nothos Hall, the group home where I grew up in the village of Whynslan. 

The vendor was a short, stout man with a sweaty brow, filthy apron, and the kindest blue eyes I had ever seen. I requested my purchase and watched the passersby while I waited, daydreaming about the homes and lives of these beautiful strangers. As the vendor filled my basket with seven potatoes, a female, so beautiful I could do nothing more than gawk with my mouth agape, came to stand next to me. Her golden-brown hair rustled in the breeze, and her sun-kissed skin shimmered in the bright afternoon light. She smiled down at me with the same sage-green eyes that met my gaze in the mirror every morning.

It was not her looks so much that made me wonder if she might be my mother. My long raven hair and fair skin made us an unlikely match, but her scent - lemongrass and eucalyptus and something else I could not quite put my finger on - felt like home.

Or as close to home as a lonely, forgotten Eremos could conjure in a six-year-old mind...