When a new boy moves to town, Sashe realizes how suddenly her life is about to change. Though non-magic themselves, she and her sister have grown up with shape changers, and now a deadly foe is out to banish the shape changing magic from the country. The Protectors have the ear of the king and they've cast a curse on the shape changers designed to slowly kill them off.Sashe is forced to consider her survival when a friend of hers is killed because her father refused to help the Protectors. She's slowly falling for the new boy, but she must choose whether she and her sister can stay with the shape changers with their dangerous future. Should they decide to stay, how will they protect themselves against such powerful enemies?First novella (nearly 22,000 words) in the Protectors prequels. Set ten years before Promising Light and two years before Fire and Light.