**Tondo, 1488**
Though my feet were wounded and torn from stumbling countless times, I forced myself to run—away from the raging flames, and away from my mother. I had slammed into several trees, my vision blurred by tears, yet I could not stop crying as I pushed my frail legs to keep moving.
When I finally reached the shores of Tondo, the full moon was high in the sky. My father's fishing boat was still there by the water's edge. Without hesitation, I climbed aboard and began rowing desperately, letting the waves carry me farther and farther from the shore. I stopped rowing only when I felt the current take over, pulling me gently away.
I looked back toward where I had come from. Though the darkness and the trees made it hard to see clearly, I knew she was there—the chief hunter sent by the Raja. She had come to erase the last surviving member of my bloodline...
The waters carried me farther out, and as the cold night breeze brushed against my face and the soft waves rocked the boat, I heard the sharp whistle of an arrow slicing through the air toward me. In the next blink, the bright, endless sky was all I could see.
"Mother…" I whispered into the wind as a single tear fell. "Three stars are aligned in the heavens, straight as a path, and the star at the hunter's left knee shines brightest."
A trembling sob escaped my lips as my vision faded and cleared once more. The star at the hunter's right shoulder gleamed next—at the same moment pain flared from the arrow buried deep in my right shoulder.
Impressive… truly impressive. Even from such a distance, she managed to strike me. I knew that if she wished, she could pierce my heart and end my life with a single shot. I did not know the full reason for their hatred toward my tribe and my kin, but I knew this—she wanted me to suffer, to be punished for being born a witch.
I knew… he came to the shore to extinguish the life of the last witch, the heir to the dark sorcery of Tondo.
And that person was none other than—
...me.