“Or maybe there is...” She smiled, but there was nothing happy about her expression. “After all i was not born this way.” She gestured to herself. The drying blood caked over her face and arms, creating dark spots across her clothing. The chandelier flickered casting the ballroom in darkness. Shrieks echoed through the hall as the crowd pressed further back attempting to disappear into the very walls. The girl knelt in the middle of the floor brushing her hand across the wood in a semicircle. Where her skin grazed the surface, white flames lept into existance casting an eerie light across horrified faces. The fire grew, crackling and leaping outwards from where she now stood. “Should I be grateful for your treatment?” She looked around finding the faces of her parents and brother. “Should I thank you for the beatings and cruel words? Tell myself that you were simply trying to make me stronger? That you knew I had the potential for this kind of power?” She gestured at the flames that crept across the floor. “Or should i seek revenge?” The fire jumped forward a few feet eliciting gasps across those in front. Her father stepped forward, the flames licking at his feet desperate to devour something. “What do you want daughter?” The girl shrugged reigning in her flames. They followed as she paced the floor, a steady pulse with each step she took. “Perhaps it would be best to begin with a sincere apology? Though it may simply outrage me further.” She continued pacing, then suddenly chuckled. “Perhaps you might debase yourself as you forced me to.” She glared at her father noting the sweat sliding down his pale face. He swallowed and for a moment she thought he might refuse, but slowly he knelt to the ground and bowed over stretching his arms out and turning his palms up. She laughed, a menacing sharp sound, and the white flames shot towards him engulfing his hands. He screamed pulling them to his chest attempting to smother the fire but instead the flames engulfed him entirely. Her mother shrieked running forward to help him, but the flames took to her dress in a single breath. They screamed and spasmed in agony but their skin remained unmarred. The girl watched them writhe on the floor basking in the pain they had brought on her many times before. Behind her, the shadowed figure stepped forward the flames around her feet parting for him as he moved in behind her. Leaning down he whispered in her ear and the flames slowly died leaving her mother sobbing on the floor and her father struggling to reach his wife. The shadowed figure brushed its hand down her arm and she calmed. “This kingdom belongs to me. Kneel or i will bring you to your knees anyways. I will not show the mercy ive shown my parents again. The flames will leave their mark.” Slowly, the crowd descended, each person finding the floor and bowing their heads. The last to do so was her brother, who glared as he knelt never allowing his eyes to fall. The shadowed figure stepped toward the throne and held out his hand to her. Without a second thought she allowed him to lead her forward and take her rightful place on the throne.