Chapter One
Minutes tick slowly by.  The sound of the second hand ringing in the ears of unresponsive students. Many of whom were fast asleep and drooling onto their sleeves. A droned lecture about hidden metaphors in Emily Dickenson’s poems breaks the eerie silence. Between the monotone explanations the sounds of heavy breathing filled the stagnate air.
Tick tick tick.
As the lesson continues on, showing no sign of ending, my mind wanders it floats over the teacher and beyond closed window and out the generic classroom; off to write my own story….
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Out of the morning fog a I, young girl with long golden silk for hair, felt as if I was  floating over the dew ridden grass. With a elegant stride I quietly dance around a deep blue lake, surrounded by smooth grey toned stones. Barefoot, I glide my feet over their surfaces, reviling in their coolness. As I make my way over the stones, my flowing ivory dress caresses the earth and rock.
Engrossed in the silence of nature, I let nostalgia set in; memories of my father, Reynard, arrive on small waves off the lakeshore. When I was a child my father would take my to this sacred spot to watch the sunrise. Just us, no guards, no worries, just that moment; that sunrise. For hours they would sit along the lake under an old oak tree, marked by it’s characteristic owl hole, and he would tell me of his childhood of growing up in Britain. Sometimes we would reenact old stories of the north and go on great quests to slay a vile Dragon. But more than often we would just sit knowing what was waiting for them back in the castle. A country in turmoil. ‘How was one person to fix all your problems? He is just my father, he is no god. Only your King. Please just leave him be,’ I would often silently plead. Too many a night I would sneak from my quarters and listen to my Father’s stately meetings and see his face grow haggard with grief. I never let my precious King know, instead I suffered in silence knowing that these trips kept his delicate sanity.
After the sun was long in the pink and purple streaked sky they would walk back home hand in hand. We did this everyday up until three years ago when the Saxons attacked. My thirteenth birthday had barely passed when the first fiery arrow was shot.  Long we had been at war with them, but everything had been silent for many moons before that shot. When the incident had finished hundreds laid dead and many more wounded. Upon hearing the news the I frantically ran from the Castle to find my mother. I found my mother, Thea, holding on to her father, who’s breathing was barely audible over the laments of the wives, the distraught queen to lost from the world sat still just holding her husband tightly in her lap. Hot tears dropped from her red eyes and mixed with the dirt and blood on his cheek. Within second of seeing this sight I collapsed at her beloved father’s side trying to find some part of him to hold and comfort.
“ Aline please don’t cry,” his words spoken between coughs, “I need you to take care of your mother when I’m gone.”  
“Father no, no don’t go! I need you. I can’t stand on my own. I need you. I love you,” Aline could barely see the love on he war-ridden face through my tears.
Before he could say his four word response he had passed on.  No tears escaped my eyes. For I knew that the body I would weep over no longer was my Father, it was only his earthborn shell. His spirit had already been lead away by the Goddess. I could feel Her presence around, filling me with comfort on a battlefield.  
When She had passed and I no longer could sense her my mind turned back to the sea of death before me. Though rage did not costume my thoughts when death stole my father away from me, a dangerous empty cold filled my chest. This lingered for months; but eventually I fought off the grief in order to save myself from loosing my mind to despair, who clung to my like a lost child. The  only thing that stayed with me till today is the imaged  of my father, the tears mixing with the blood on his cheek, the subtle look of love in his troubled eyes still infiltrates my dreams.
The tears from the past leaked into the present as I silently whipped away the memory and turned for home. The sun had now risen to the point that the shadows were nearly gone.  A bell tolled in the distance, I began to run when the final ring had faded into the forest. Trees of all shades of green now surrounded her. Jumping over roots and avoiding low branches I made my way out. The main feature in the skyline was one I knew well, my home, the Castle of Caillot.  My home sat atop a great hill around the fortress stood a 20 feet tall stone outer wall. From the inner city sounds of townspeople and herds of sheep reached my ears.
When I made it to the massive front gate, made of oak from the forest, I entered the city.

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But before I could image could imagine the sights and smells of the inner city….
BUZZ
Disoriented by the shrieking school bell I woke from my story. Within milliseconds I am on compelled by my pavlovian response to break free from my desk. When I began move towards the exit I was stopped by a wall of others like myself. We were like stampeding wildebeests running from a hungry lion and found ourselves bottle necked to one door. Eons later I made it outside, the bright sun blinded me as it bounced off the light grey cement. I shielded my eyes and hastened my walk to reach the safety of the grass. All around me the air was hot and heavy though the calendar read October. I sought shade under a giant oak tree behind the student family center. The tree was different than all the others it was marked with a huge hole halfway up its trunk; this absence of wood and bark seemed to cause the tree no harm. I settled myself under the owl hole tree and began stare up into its branches. Within a few minutes sleep took me back the world I had created.

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Upon reaching the hand carved wooden gate, the guards opened them for me, I thanked them with a polite smile. Swiftly I moved passed the market and towards the Church which stood in the center of the city next to the castle. All around me merchants bargained with buyers, goats bleated in their stalls, women chattered excitedly about the daily gossip, and their children played nearby.
I had become accustomed to these sights and took no interest in them. The city life was all I had known and yet I longed for something beyond these familiar walls. I wanted a life away from my childhood memories, away from the ritualistic customs,  and away from the court. Only six months after the Saxon's raid of the city, my mother remarried. He is a kind man with a hearty laugh, but he takes no interest in me and I am fine with that. I chose to fill my time with helping the kitchen maids, taking care of my twin half-brothers Aiden and Gareth, and playing with my close friend, a peasant girl, Emmy, who has a kind heart for animals. Many a day we would go on adventures after we tended to her family's live stock and household chores. Her parents knew me to be of royal blood but never questioned my motives to be their daughter's friend and helper.
The twins were born in the winter of first year of Thea’s marriage to Bennett. It was not a hard labor for the midwife was well skilled. I was not allowed in the room when my brother’s were born but when I did get the chance admire their perfect little identical features I fell in love with them. They were small and the color of fresh milk and hair the same golden sheen as mine. Even though they were exact mirrors of each other I have yet to mix the two up, no one else can claim the same. For the past two years I have become their second mother since their birth mother has to deal with the manners of the court. They run to me when they scab their knees, mend their clothes before mother notices the new tears, and sing them to sleep at night.  
My lips curled into a subtle smile with the thoughts of my little loves and dear friend as a reached the base of the church steps. I quickly crossed myself and ran up the intricate stone steps. Silently I entered the house of worship to join the rest of the god fearing court.  While I walked warily to sit next my mother I thought of how this building came to be.
The church was the jewel of the city and the only standing testament from my grandfather. He was an extremely religious man in his later years of life. In his unknowing last year of being king he ordered the chapel to be built form the finest stones in the land in the name of Saint Peter. On every wall and door intricate biblical scenes comprised of glass and metal allowed from wonderful mixtures of color to streak across it's praying patrons. The memory that was not my own faded as I took my seat next to the queen and was greeted by her scornful green eyes.
The years following my father’s departure had been kind to her. Her youthful glow did not mimic her three and thirty years of life. She had smooth pale white skin and thin light rose pink lips to match. Ever since I was a child my mother had always reminded me of a doll in this way. But that connection did not did not count for her height. She stood a good head above most men and this had always troubled her, who would want to be with a woman who was taller than them? Thankfully her worries became silenced when she met my father. He was a burly man who could look her in the eyes and hold her in his arms. The same is true for my Step-Father, Bennett, but he is a far leaner man with a clean shaven face.
Thea has always been one for fashion and today she is adorned in a vibrant green silk dress with precise beading in interweaving vines. Her brilliant yellow hair is covered in a sheer light green veil dotted with small finely made flowers.
Beside my mother on the pew are Aiden and Gareth, they were both fast asleep next to my mother whose eyes were closed and hand locked in prayer. The boys leaned on each other for support and both had a trail of drool on the corners of their mouths. Beyond the sleeping toddlers sat the King who, like my mother, was intent on his daily prayer. I alone sat with my hands on my lap, letting the sermon pass through my ears. I hold no faith with my mother’s God, but I will never let that be known for I would called a witch and nothing good ensues from such a claim. So instead I dream of a future away from the priests and their barbaric God in a land where the old ways still thrive.