October 1996
Rada sighed, gently rubbing her rounded belly. Here at Wolfram Manor, time seemed to slip by so quickly.
When there’s a little kid in the house, no two days are ever the same. And soon, there would be two of them. Rada could hardly believe it. The thing was, a terrible curse had hung over her family for centuries, one that meant parents never got to see their children grow up. Many women in her cursed lineage didn’t even know about it, unknowingly putting themselves and their loved ones in mortal danger. Rada knew, though, and so did her husband. It was a tough choice, but a deliberate one.
Even with the fear of running out of time, understanding didn’t always reign in this house. There were arguments. Sometimes they’d go hours without speaking, but they always made up in the end. That’s exactly what happened seven months ago.
Rada pressed her lips together, trying to hold back the smile that kept tugging at her mouth. The baby stirred, giving her a little kick in the belly.
“Sweetie, don’t you start working magic in there. Mom can barely handle your acrobatics as it is,” she said, finally letting out a laugh as she patted her stomach.
The second child was due at the beginning of January. Rada and Albrecht were convinced it would be another girl, since no boys had been born into the Solongton family for over a hundred years. But when they had the chance to confirm the baby’s gender, they decided to keep it a secret, even from themselves.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the patter of tiny feet nearby. Rada gasped, stepping back just in time to avoid being knocked over by a whirlwind named Lera.
“Lera!”
“What?” came the innocent reply, accompanied by a pair of gleaming dark green eyes.
Rada just shook her head.
“Weren’t you supposed to be helping your dad?”
“Daddy turned away, so I ran off,” the little girl giggled, wrapping her arms around Rada’s legs.
Rada laughed, ruffling her daughter’s dark hair.
The girl was growing up so fast, practically by the hour. No one had even noticed when she said her first word or took her first steady steps. Lera was only a year old, but her mind was already sharper than most kids her age.
“Mo-om,” Lera finally let go of her legs, tilting her head up to look at Rada’s face. “Is Lizzie coming tomorrow?”
Lizzie was the daughter of well-known Ukrainian designers and, coincidentally, Lera’s best friend. Unfortunately, they couldn’t see each other as often as Lera would have liked.
“Of course. Lizzie will be here tomorrow with her parents. And a bunch of your other friends too,” Rada emphasized. Lera was a social butterfly, easily making friends with anyone new. But the moment Lizzie showed up, she could forget everyone else existed.
Laughing, Lera darted off toward a bush of delicate pink roses.
“Mom!”
“What, my little princess?” Rada replied wearily. Her legs felt like lead, so she quickly spotted a bench and sat down.
“When I grow up, will someone fall in love with me and name a flower after me too?”
Rada sighed again, but this time a faint smile played on her lips. The rose bush Lera was now happily sniffing had been cultivated for Rada by Albrecht long ago. They were called “Beauty.” He probably hadn’t planned it back then, just messing around with a dying bush out of boredom. But the skilled hands of a healer’s son had worked their magic, creating an entirely new variety of rose.
The first stars had already appeared in the sky. Despite it being mid-fall, the weather was warm and still. Everything around was quiet and peaceful. But besides the mother and daughter, someone else was there. The house and its grounds were protected by powerful enchantments, so not even a stray cat could sneak in without permission. This uninvited guest peered through a small crack in the stone wall of the fence. She couldn’t be seen, only her two amber cat-like eyes glowed in the dark. Hearing footsteps, she fled.
Closing the iron gate behind him, a young dark-haired man stepped into the garden, dressed in jeans and a light sweater. His long hair was tied back in a ponytail. Albrecht approached the bench where Rada sat and collapsed beside her, exhausted.
“The magic’s done with the cleaning,” he said, glancing at their daughter standing by a small fountain. He let out a tired chuckle. “I told her Mom needed a break, but she didn’t listen.”
“She came running to ask about Lizzie,” Rada said, her smile fading. “Do you still think throwing a big party was a good idea? Morl wasn’t exactly thrilled when he found out we had a child.”
“We can’t keep hiding from him forever. It’s not our fault his life turned out the way it did. And if he somehow figures out where we live and dares to show up, I’ll protect you both.”
They had learned a year and a half ago that Morl was now their sworn enemy.
Rada and Albrecht weren’t ordinary wizards. Three years ago, while searching for her mother, Rada had accidentally traveled through space and time, landing in the seventeenth century on the planet Aladeya. There, she faced countless dangers. But it was also there that she met Albrecht—an eighteen-year-old boy broken by his own grief, hell-bent on revenge against all wizards. The irony was, he turned out to be a wizard himself. And not just any wizard, but the younger brother of Merlin. Yes, the Merlin from the Arthurian legends.
After the fall of Camelot, Merlin had been forced to flee, saving all those gifted with magic from persecution. A mysterious portal called the Well of Semrad led them to the distant planet Aladeya, where mages and humans lived in peace. For his deeds, Merlin was granted immortality, but he deeply missed his native Britain.
The fact that he managed to use the ancient portal again was nothing short of a miracle. Merlin traveled back through time and space, bringing his mother, Igraine, to Aladeya. This time, the Well of Semrad decided to transport them to the seventeenth century. That was the portal’s annoying quirk—it never returned you to the same time, only forward.
On Aladeya, Merlin’s mother fell in love with a young wizard and gave birth to a son. But their happy life ended there—both of them died. To protect his newborn brother, Merlin had to hide him far away. It was a long, tangled, and tragic story. Dark forces found Albrecht nearly eighteen years later, his adoptive family perished, and he, now grown, was forced to flee until he finally found his older brother and learned the whole truth.
It was during this journey that Rada and Albrecht met. So different from each other, they didn’t hit it off right away. It took years for life to test their friendship and love. One of those tests was the then-immortal Prince Morl. The wizards took an instant dislike to each other, though they mostly tried to ignore one another and avoid crossing paths.
When the Gate of Time called Rada back to the twentieth century, Albrecht followed her. He had long known about her family’s curse. It was his conscious choice to stand by her.
And it was then that Rada learned Morl had gone from foe to their fiercest enemy. Unlike them, he had lived through all three centuries and now thirsted for revenge against anyone with Solongton blood in their veins.
“I feel sorry for him. Morl, I mean…” Rada sighed softly. “If someone hurt my child, I don’t know what I’d do.”
“He’s spent the last hundred years wiping out members of your family one by one. Descendants shouldn’t have to pay for the crimes of one person,” Albrecht replied.
“That’s just our fate—to pay for other people’s mistakes. If Veronica Solongton hadn’t cursed her own bloodline in a fit of despair, we could’ve lived long, happy lives. Now, every time I start to get angry, her face pops into my mind. Maybe she was abandoned and miserable, but her actions disgust me. If she’d just jumped off a cliff… No. Her dying curse was sealed in blood.” Rada clenched and unclenched her fists. “I bet he remembers the name of his son’s killer the same way I remember Veronica. I wonder what her name was? I can understand Morl. But not always… Enough about him. Any news from Merlin?”
“He said he’d come tomorrow,” Albrecht said, pursing his lips. “Though I wouldn’t put too much stock in his word. That school and his order always come before family.”
Lately, Albrecht’s relationship with his older brother had been strained.
“Shall we head inside?” he asked after a few seconds, changing the subject.
Rada nodded, taking his hand as she stood up from the bench.
Albrecht walked over to their daughter, who was yawning by the fountain, and scooped her up into his arms. The little girl wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in his hair.
Climbing to the second floor and into the nursery, he laid her down in her crib. Despite her exhaustion, the girl didn’t want to fall asleep right away.
* * *