Prologue
The slave girl struggled to move her bare feet on the burning sand. The harsh sun rays beat down on them mercilessly, causing everyone to crouch forward with the top of their heads brushing their shackled wrists in front of them.
In the manner befitting a true slave.
Despite the large number of people, the clanging of the chains was the only sound to be heard.
The slave girl could only pray desperately as the people milled around her in utter despair- they were all her former neighbours, friends and extended family-, except now all of them were unrecognisable in their submission.
Suddenly the chain connecting her wrists to her ankles twisted as she had been too caught up in her head to notice and she fell forward, landing on her knees.
The front of her legs burned over the scathing desert sand and she frantically tried to get up- only to have her limbs pull her back down as they yelled in protest.
The people had entirely stopped moving around her, even breathing- judging by the sheer silence.
Silence that was like a call for the executioner.
As if answering the call, a soldier from the sideline moved in her direction. The cracking of his whip caused a chill to creep down her spine and she looked down on the ground, while praying in harsh desperate chants.
She would die here, in this very spot, where her skin burned and her life was not hers.
She braced herself to look up for one last time, to try to claim some authority over her final action before her imminent death, but what she saw when she raised her head was not the dark executioner looking down on her.
Her vision grew blurry as her tears flowed freely now at what she saw; appearing like an apparition- or an angel even, was the queen.
The diamond queen.
Her kind eyes reached out to the slave girl in a soft caress before she raised her arms in a swift motion, causing all the soldiers on the sidelines to disintegrate into tiny vessels trapped within diamond cages.
The slave girl could only watch in awe as their queen stood before her in all her glory.
She had come for them. She was going to save them all. They were, at last, free.
