The Rise of Svetlana Romanoff

Prologue The nineteenth century was a dangerous time for Wiccans in Russia. The whispers had started as rumors, just idle gossip on the streets of Moscow, but soon they turned into a roar of fear and suspicion. For a young witch like Svetlana Romanoff, magic was as natural as breathing—something she inherited from her mother, a powerful light witch, and her father, a wizard with more modest skills. But as the persecution of their kind grew worse, their home became a prison, and their powers, once a source of comfort, turned into a serious risk. "We must leave, Anatoly," Svetlana's mother, Anastasia, had urged her husband, her voice a tremor in the night. "Before the fires find us." And so they fled, not as magic-wielders, but as a frightened family seeking a new life across the sea. Their destination was a place of grim irony: Salem, Massachusetts. Two millennia had passed since the trials, but the echoes of that dark chapter still lingered, and the old fears, though dormant, were never truly gone. In America, they found a quiet corner of the world where they could stay hidden. Anastasia, ever the pragmatic matriarch, used her formidable healing gifts in a subtle, untraceable way. She brewed powerful healing potions, disguised in plain bottles and labeled with the names of common herbs—chamomile for soothing, lavender for calm. These tonics were her only link to her magic, a silent promise that the light within her had not been extinguished. It was a life of shadows and whispers, a far cry from the vibrant, magical world Svetlana had known in Russia, but it was safe. Or so they thought. One cold evening, as the last light of day faded from the sky, the family's fragile peace was shattered. The sound of a splintering door cut through the silence, followed by a chaos of shouts, screams, and the crackling of mundane fire. Svetlana, hidden in a dusty cellar, pressed a small, trembling hand over her mouth. Through a gap in the floorboards, she watched her mother and father, the two people who made up her entire world, be brutally murdered. Their powerful and pure light magic was no match for the cold, iron-clad resolve of their attackers. In the flickering firelight, the last thing Svetlana saw was not her father's face, but a symbol carved into a ring—a serpent coiled around a skull, a mark she would never forget.