Prologue
When I was a young girl, I witnessed my mother's death.
In the dead of winter was when the King's guards ripped my mother from my weak, childish hands. They dragged her out of the house, not that it was much of one, and down to the gallows. I grapsed my infant sister against my chest tightly as the word 'treason' floated about the crowd like a butterfly.
One of the only things a remember about that day was the calmness of mother's face; she shed no tears, it was as if she had come to terms with her fate, with leaving her eldest daughter, barely seven to fend for herself and a baby.
A scream erupted from the crowd as the barrel was kicked from under her, it was only when I calmed down that I realized it was me, I was the one screaming. An older woman wrapped a dark cloak around me, pushing a cup into my my hands, filling with hollow warmth. A boy, about my age, knelt beside me. He offered me what laid in his hands; an apple and a blade.
" Choose,"
One of the things I remember about that day was the King smiling down at me sinisterly as my mother hung.
I take the blade.
