The news spread like wildfire: Silas, the most feared sorcerer of their age, had been defeated in the most humiliating way imaginable—not by a rival of equal strength or reputation, but by Sienna-Rose, the one they all dismissed. The one they mocked. The weakest of them all.
No one could believe it. But no one took it harder than Ulysses Elowen.
Ulysses had always been number two, always chasing Silas's shadow, always reaching, never quite grasping the top. To see his greatest rival brought down, that was painful enough. But to see it done by Sienna-Rose, whom he considered a disgrace to the entire magical order? That was unbearable.
He had never been able to face his own feelings of inferiority, and so he twisted them into contempt. To Ulysses, Sienna-Rose had never deserved the title of sorceress. She was too delicate, too graceful, and too beautiful. And in his mind, beauty was weakness.
