The moment I saw her, my world stopped.

“...Mom?” The word barely made it past my lips before I stumbled toward her.

She looked nothing like the woman in my memories, but I would recognize her anywhere. The radiant figure from my childhood was gone. In her place was a woman who had been chained in the dark for decades.

Her white hair fell in tangled sheets. She was terrifyingly thin, and her wrists were bound by heavy iron restraints that pulsed faintly with dark magic.

Everything about her had changed, except her eyes.

When her gaze met mine, her eyes widened in sheer disbelief. She recognized me too.

“Nadia?”...