Prologue
✨ PROLOGUE — The Real Version ✨
This is the story of a girl who was given a name that never belonged to her. Not because her parents were cruel—please. Life doesn’t need cruelty; it has strategy. She was given a name that didn’t fit because hiding her identity was the only way to keep her alive.
Sometimes love shows up as presence. Sometimes love shows up as absence that scorches. Sometimes the only way to protect your child is to disappear so completely that even the gods lose your scent.
Leonard grew up in a cage. A quiet one, disguised as survival. Every orphan learns the same first lesson: no matter how the world frames it, loss feels personal.
But cages do funny things. Leave something trapped long enough and it learns its own strength. Push something into darkness long enough and it grows its own light.
This is the story of how a girl named Leonard burned her way out of her past and renamed herself Lyralei—not out of spite, but out of evolution. Of how she realized the scar on her face wasn’t a flaw, but a warning label: Break me at your own risk.
She learned that trust has teeth. That hope is a gamble. That love is never neat—it’s messy, dangerous, and sometimes it leaves a body behind.
But here’s the truth she wasn’t supposed to find: Being left behind wasn’t about her not being enough. It was about a love so fierce it had to erase itself to save her.
So if you’ve ever wondered if you were meant to be claimed… If you’ve ever stared at your own reflection and asked, “Why wasn’t I enough?” —this story is yours, too.
Because Leonard didn’t just survive. She transformed. She chose her name. She chose her power. She chose herself.
And grace? Grace isn’t a gift. Grace is the aftermath of pain you outgrew.
…Rest easy, Dad. I’m telling the story now.
