Prologue
Three years earlier
The sound of the forest accompanied Ciara Winter in a fight dance with her older brother Michael. They practiced day after day under the guidance of their father and his brother away from the village of Kidman where they lived.
Ciara dodged her brother’s wooden practice sword in the stomach at the last second. Her brother was a big man of twenty-four, with a heavy hand, trained by years of training with his father. Years go by, their father’s health deteriorated from old age. Michael took it upon himself to teach his youngest sister to fight.
Never forget Ciara when, at the age of eight, her father told her over dinner by the tiled stove in their reed-roofed cottage, a landmark on the eastern side of the Avan Kingdom, that her father would teach her how to fight. Ciara was very happy. In the village where they lived, few people could fight, although the raids of enemies in their direction did not exist at all, and because of the fact that this land was poor in precious minerals. It was not profitable for the kingdom to spend gold from the royal treasury on the fighting training of peasants from the far east. Kidman, on the southeastern border of the Ash Kingdom, where Ciara lived with her father and brother, was a backward corner of the world with few mineral deposits, where the King was most interested. Doesn’t mean the east was some desert plain with nothing. The East was bread for the whole Kingdom of Avan. In this forgotten corner of the world, millions of tons of grain were produced annually, which was able to feed the entire Kingdom and trade with other Kingdoms.
Ciara and Michael’s father was a soldier in the Royal Army. He fought several, perhaps hundreds of battles in the name of the Kingdom he loved, but he will never forget how many people he killed in the name of his country. He never forgave himself for spilling the blood of innocent children he killed. When day after day in the tents the platoon colonel was telling the young soldiers about the future glory of the Empire, the young soldier swallowed the manipulation. Thirty years have passed and being retired as a soldier, when he goes to sleep he hears the screams of children, women and the elderly locked in a burning barn, where he set himself on fire.
When his first child, Michael, was born, the father knew he would teach his firstborn son to survive. He knew wars would never end and he didn’t want him to be defenseless when his father was gone. He taught Michel through hard work how to hunt and fight. When Michael’s mother became pregnant again and, giving her last breath, gave birth to a beautiful white-haired girl with blue eyes. The father was distraught after the loss of his wife. For a long time he could not take care of children, especially little Ciara. He couldn’t look at her big blue eyes. Thanks to the kindness of Uncle and Aunt Ciara and Michael, they were raised.
Seventeen-year-old Ciara noticed the gap that Michael had not shielded with his wooden sword, and with a swift movement, Ciara rolled on the ground next to Michael and slammed her sword into her brother’s waist. Due to severe pain in his kidneys, Michael fell face down on the ground, dropping his wooden sword, grabbing his aching side with his bare hand.
“Ciara what have you done?!” roared the father, furrowing his gray-brown brows, his blue eyes glaring at Ciara.
Uncle ran onto the practice field and swung Michael onto his back. His brown hair was plastered by the forest floor, and a huge grin spread across his face.
“Father, don’t be angry with her,” exclaimed Michael, laughing. - “Young found my weak spot.”
“My dear brother, you don’t have to defend me. I know your few little weak spots, not only in combat,” Ciara said as she approached her fallen brother. She crouched down beside him and leaned close to his ear so that no one but Michael could hear, “When are you going to introduce Sara to your father?”
Michael suddenly stopped smiling and stared open-mouthed at Ciara.
“How do you know?” he whispered.
Ciara grinned mischievously at her brother and flicked a fallen tree leaf off his shirt.
“Unfortunately, I saw what you guys were doing last night, Genny, in your father’s barn. In the future, check the room for anyone.”
“You little shit!!!!” Michael suddenly grabbed Ciara’s hand and swung it over him with all his might, until Ciara suddenly fell backwards into the mud. With a grunt, Michael got up and walked over to an angry Ciara. - “You’re Dead. In the future, finish off the enemy.”
“Kids, that’s enough fun,” said the uncle.
“We have to go now, the sun is setting, and we have a lot...” - suddenly the father’s voice was drowned out by the sound of a horn and the patter of hooves.
The four of them looked at each other and ran briskly towards their small farming village of Kidman. Michael was the first in the village, followed by Ciara, father and lame uncle.
They found a river of blood from the dead bodies. Neighbors Ciara and Michael’s small children lay on their backs with their necks cut open, red blood oozing out. A few houses away, she saw the invaders set fire to the reed hut. Ciara’s favorite teacher and healer, Mr. Zin, lived there, and he instilled in her a passion for reading. The burning hut hid hundreds of books that Ciara hadn’t finished reading. Now the cottage, with the undiscovered secrets of the books, was burning like a torch.
There was blood and carnage everywhere. Ciara and Michael’s father prayed daily to the gods that his children would never experience war the hard way, that they would never see slaughterhouses, and never contribute to the murder of innocent people.
In the middle of the square there was a well where a black-clothed invader in a hood was standing next to it, and a woman was lying under his feet. In his right hand he held a longsword stained with fresh blood, and in his left hand, poor Sara’s severed head.
Michael in anger and tears in his eyes jumped with his wooden practice sword at the invader like a small child. The enemy killed Ciara’s brother with a quick cut to the stomach. The father turned to his daughter and pushed her to hide behind the hay wagon.
“Take a horse and run west!” Father shouted to Ciara with tears in his eyes and handed her his old hunting dagger which he never parted from. “Remember that you and Michael were my greatest treasures. Promise me you’ll survive.
“Father, please don’t...” Ciara grabbed her father’s hands.
“Ciara for the gods! Promise me and your mother that you will survive.”
“I promise.” Ciara kissed her father’s hand. The father stroked his daughter’s hair and kissed her forehead and whispered:
“You look so much like your mother.” He let go of her hand and ran.
Ciara wanted to grab her father’s hand again and ask him to run away with him, but father and uncle ran to the other hay wagon. Father took the scythe and uncle the pitchfork. They moved to attack Michael’s murderer. Suddenly behind them two horsemen rode at a fast trot and, swinging their swords in a clean slash, cut off the head of father and uncle. Ciara squealed and quickly covered the sound with her hands. She couldn’t understand that she had just lost everyone and that she might die soon.
As she wiped away the last tear and sheathed her father’s dagger in her belt, suddenly someone grabbed her hair and dragged her towards the orchard. Ciara’s hands tried to free her hair from its hold. She saw how the hooded one invades with a sly smile and drags her along the ground. The pain was incredibly unbearable. She could see that the enemy was enjoying her suffering. Suddenly the stranger, halfway to the orchard, let her go. Ciara dropped back to the ground and saw the invader raise his sword and pierce the girl’s belly with the sharp end. She felt a great pain in her stomach, and blood rushed to her esophagus. Ciara broke at the gash in her stomach and rolled onto her side and spat out blood. In front of her eyes, she saw her murderer drop dead next to her through the mist.
In the last moment before her death, she saw the face of her favorite teacher and healer with age, and suddenly the abyss of darkness took her from the world of the living.
