A/N: At last! I have started to redo this story! I finally decided to do something, since it has been so, so, so long since I've updated. I needed to do this revision. It will be different, and those who already know what happens, please do not come after me for going so slowly! I haven't called it quits on this story, and I really don't want to because I enjoyed writing this.

I hope you enjoy this, and hopefully this revision will be much better than the first version.

Prologue

Midnight

The blank green eyes of a small girl watched her mother's black carriage glimmer in the sunlight. Grass just as green swayed lithely underneath it, reaching up towards the blue heavens. Her gaze danced above flowers that bloomed in the gardens. Bright petals and buds varied in a tremendous array of colors that could leave the viewer blinking.

The little girl saw the realm through a tall opened window. It was a peaceful and beautiful day outside.

But inside the king's castle, it was turmoil.

"Will you do me a favor, child?" her mother, who stood beside her, asked quietly.

The girl nodded tentatively.

"You hold some power over that boy, do you realize that?"

A shake of the head.

"There is a monster inside him, and it is killing him. Will you be my brave girl and help him frighten this monster away?"

The young woman received silence, and then a firm nod. She smiled. "Your heart will know what to do," she whispered, and encouraged her towards the door at the end of the corridor.

The girl trembled as she strode to the door. Four men in thick armor stood before it, and they cast curious and anxious glances at her mother. The young woman nodded. They parted and gave the girl room to approach.

She knocked on the door, once weakly, the second more urgently.

"I told you to go away." The boy was in there. His voice was soft, but there was a low and ominous sound to it. "Leave me alone."

The girl looked over her shoulder at her mother. The latter nodded. Finally, she knocked a third time, her voice coming out, weakly, but audible.

"May I come in?"

There was a long pause. Time stood still, and she opened her mouth to ask again. But then the door opened, and unbeknownst to her, her feet had begun moving into his room.

The door closed behind her. Surprisingly, she did not shudder at the sight of the room. The walls were covered with deep scratches and rotten remnants of food. His bed linens had been pulled from the bed and now lay in a disorderly pool of fabric on the floor. The covers had been torn apart violently. The down feathers from ripped pillows lay scattered around the chaotic floor, coating all the broken mirror glass, limbs of chairs and blocks of stone from the wall.

The girl gazed hurriedly about, then focused on the boy who stood in the center of it all. Strangely, her lips curved into a smile.

He had been glaring at her with glowing red eyes, but after seeing that smile, he spun away. "What do you want?" he snarled.

"My mother told me to help you scare a monster away," she explained. "There are many monsters where I come from."

"I don't care about where you come from."

"But there are many ways to scare them away."

"I don't care! Just leave me alone!"

He grabbed a leg of a broken wooden chair and tossed it across the room, just missing her head.

She didn't move, but stood there, lower lip quivering when she wanted it not to. He must have seen her hesitant expression, for his temper instantly diminished.

"I'm sorry," he said, turning away.

"Are you fighting it?" she asked quietly.

"Fighting what?"

"The monster inside you?"

Awareness flashed in his red eyes, and she winced involuntarily.

"There's no point," he muttered. "I am a monster. And I can do whatever the hell I please!"

She couldn't leave for safety. Her mother would be disappointed. Everyone would be disappointed.

"You have to fight it!"

"I can't!"

"Are you scared?" Her question was not intended to mock him.

He gasped at her. "What? No! I am not scared!"

But any little girl could see that he was.

"Don't come any closer!"

She did, her young natural fear already forgotten. He clutched his head in his hands. "No! Stop! Please . . ."

She stopped, watching him. It was then that her dominant demeanor, the child side of her, returned. She cringed as he threw his head back and forth in his hands, yelling, "I'm not scared! I'm not scared!"

"Do you know what my mother does when I'm scared?" she asked in a small voice.

He calmed for several seconds, remembering she was still there. "What?"

"She hugs me, and tells me everything will be all right. And she says I can fight them. The monsters."

Her words held him still for one moment. But he frowned as if to clear his mind. "My mother won't hold me. I'm unwell."

Without warning, a smile spread across her face. "Then I will!" she exclaimed gleefully.

And abruptly, she tossed her arms around him.

He jerked in her little embrace. But she didn't let go. The feeling of evil was surfacing. He screamed for her to get away, to leave him and return to safety.

It was coming out, and he could not stop it this time.

But then he heard her voice in his ringing ears. Her voice that he could never forget. The voice of the girl whose smile he would never forget.

"Everything will be all right."

And just like that, the evil spirit was expelled from his body.

There was an awful explosion from inside the room. The girl's mother and the four guards threw open the door, but they immediately encountered an enormous force of demonic energy that sent them flying backward.

The young woman stared into the room from where she lay. Where was her daughter? Was she hurt?

No, she wasn't. For there she was. She saw her, standing in the center of the room, the boy held securely in her arms. A black cloud hung over their heads. The young woman waved her hand at it, and it began to dissolve in the air until it all disappeared, obliterated.

She breathed in relief and rose to run to her daughter, to hold her and tell her how much she could never have been more proud of her.

But both her daughter and the boy she'd rescued fell to the floor, deeply unconscious.

Many bodies rushed into the room to attend to the boy. The young woman held her daughter away from the crowd, stroking her dark hair gently. The next few moments were a blur as people went in and out of the room, but what happened around her did not matter. Her little girl had accomplished something in just minutes when it would take her Head Sorceress a day. She could feel the power coursing through the small body.

She smiled and whispered, so no one else could hear, "You are a Guardian, Dusk. It's your destiny."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

My eyes opened, as they always they did when the dream ended.

Very little light seeped through the curtains into my bedroom, and I knew another day had begun.

I slowly slipped out of bed, half aware that I had started moving toward the door. The last remnants of the dream were still hazy in my head, and it was a while before I could recall all that had happened, not that I hadn't seen it before.

I found my way through the hall from my room to the bathroom. No one else was awake; I was always the first one up.

A decent amount of light passed through the window to display what was inside the small bathroom. Without turning on the light, I bent over the sink and splashed warm water on my face. I grabbed my towel and dried my face, glancing at myself in the mirror.

And I saw the green eyes behind me.

They belonged to a girl of seventeen, who had dark hair that partially covered a quiver of arrows and a bow strewn across her chest. I could barely make out her transparent form in the dim light, but I knew she was there.

"Don't worry, Dusk," I said quietly. "We'll figure out what your mother meant about your destiny."

Her head made a slight nod, and without a moment more, she faded away.

I sighed and closed my eyes.

Trying to solve the mystery of a ghost's past had proven itself difficult. But trying to figure out what it had to do with me was even harder.