Hello there, before I begin, I would like to preface this by saying that I’m looking for a beta reader, someone who will honestly critique my work so that I would feel comfortable sending something in to be published. I’d be glad to beta read anyone else’s story if they would do that for me, thanks!

Prologue

If one looked far enough out into the great southern expanse from the outer walls of the city, it was common fact that the strangest mirages would begin to appear. It was an overly warm summer day as a palace guard grumbled to himself about the heat and the sweat that was pooling down at his feet when something caught his eye. This was no great raider army; no indeed it was a very small something. Later on he was said to have believed that this little shadow was indeed nothing more than a mirage, and after yet to be mentioned events that he even wished that it had been.

This little shadow on a horse passed through the open gates catching the eyes of those in the less crowded portions of the market place. Upon a sandy desert horse rode a shadow of a girl, still and unblinking, the little girl sat astride the horse as if carved from stone for it seemed that no living being could sit so still and unafraid, and hardly a soul would have believed the girl still living if not for the steady flow of blood from some unseen wound deep set in her lip. Folk about their daily lives shuffled past her, their cheery talk silenced, their brisk paced ended as they made way for the girl, then without a word of explanation their lives continued as if she had never crossed their paths at all.

Those that truly watched her found her an odd sort of thing. True, more commerce had been coming through the kingdom of late, and yet the darkly tanned skin of the desert folk still seemed out of place in the northern kingdom. She was a thin little thing, tall and lanky with arms and legs that seemed ungainly, she dressed in simple clothing; un-dyed rough fabric sewn roughly into loose pants and top. Though it would have been strange to see a northerner woman wear such things, men’s clothing was common among the southern tribes and were hardly of even passing interest to those who were used to the strange sites of the city. She wore her hair tied up behind her head, its dark mass took in the sunlight without seeming to reflect it, and yet bounced off all of the strange manor of things that were tied into it. Among them were feathers of different sorts, stained glass bobbles, things of pressed steel and carved wood, tied tight as if woven into her very hair itself, which hung just below her shoulders allowing some of the longer strings and ties to reach beyond it.

What happened next varies from teller to teller, and none seem to quite agree, but the strands of story that seem to have spread most and seemed most believed say that as the girl came to the doors of the inner city, she raised one weary looking arm and then flicked her overlong fingers as one would shoo away a child from their path. After her hand returned to her side the giant doors began to groan. The doors that were never opened save for some royal procession through the city, letting normal people pass through the small doors on either side (if they held the right token). Never the less the doors groan shook loose stray dust that had gathered and the doors swung wide to reveal the royal palace, while the guards looked on, as if nothing out of the ordinary was taking place. The girl tapped her tired looking mare through the gates and asked the guard on the other side in a rasping sort of voice for audience with the king. This much those looker-on’s remember before the great gates once again swung tightly shut.