A/N: This is a collaborative work between Silveralsa and elisefey. Silveralsa comes up with the plot and characters, ideas, etc., and elisefey comes up with the words to express them.

Prologue

Most have forgotten Miliatha, its existence lost in the annals of time, overlooked and unrecorded in order to make room for the memory of greater countries with more dramatic histories. But Miliatha was not without its stories; good kings and evil kings and, before the kingdom fell to its own iniquities, heroes to build legends on.

And yet, if you were to travel back in time and ask one of these legends who the real heroes of Miliatha were, you might be surprised at their answers. If you were to ask me – the last lingering shroud of one of Miliatha’s greatest legends – what it means to be a forgotten country’s hero, I would easily tell you that you must first discard your current notions of heroes and allow me to redefine the word for you. To illuminate the true significance of what it means to behave heroically.

But in order for any of this to make sense at all, I shall have to start at the beginning of my adventure, when my life took an unexpected turn before I could even step foot on its originally intended path. It was the twists and detours, the forks in the road of this path that led to an unpredicted conclusion, a conclusion many have forgotten was ever expected to be different. A conclusion to a story that began, as many stories do, with the follies of a cowardly man. A king to be exact.

ש

In the early years of his reign, King Sterangier gained reputation as a compassionless and driven ruler. By force and treachery he had taken the throne, and it was by force and treachery that he feared it would be taken from him and his descendants, wrested from his grasp by the true-bloods of the royal line and their supporters. Sterangier had taken the throne but his continued hold on it was tenuous without the political support of those he had made previously made enemies.

His paranoia only increased when his queen became with child and it was for this reason that he began to arrange for the subtle removal of those true nobility that threatened his position. One by one, King Sterangier secretly plotted against and eliminated the families within his royal court. The pattern of deaths was not lost on his courtiers, the least of all Sir Mikiand and his Lady Juinviere. When, not long after the birth of Sterangier’s son, Juinviere also became pregnant, the lady and Sir Mikiand knew that it would only be a matter of time before they too became the targets of the king’s assassins for the royal blood their child would bear. The time of birthing came early for the Lady Juinviere which made it a small matter to spread the rumor that the child she had birthed was still-born. In truth, the reason for the early birth was that Juinviere had born her good husband twins, healthy babes given over to the care of the family’s faithful nurse, Besany. The twins, Silverantha and Dekon, were whisked away to safe obscurity by Besany. Only weeks later, before they would have another chance at bearing children, Mikiand and Juinviere met with tragic ‘accident’ in their carriage while visiting close friends. To the eyes of the world, the last of Miliatha’s true royal line had passed out of existence.

However, there were those few who knew better, among them the wise and faithful Besany who hid herself and the twins in the sheltering anonymity of the peasant class. For seven years the twins lived in a farming village, a mere two leagues outside of Miliatha, growing closer to each other with passing time. But Besany grew fearful for their safety as their features and appearances began to mature. They were unmistakably of Wakian descent, the true line of Miliathan royalty. Silverantha, the girl twin, looked almost identical to her mother, with the same sweet, honey-blond hair and eyes a shimmering, shifting array of gray, green and blue. Her twin brother, Dekon, favored their father, with his raven black hair and cornflower blue eyes. The differences in their appearance were like night and day, and Besany affectionately called the children her sun and moon. But there was one feature that not only branded the twins as brother and sister but as bearing the Wakian lineage: the silver streak of hair, beginning in the hairline over the left eye. Besany knew that, even outside of Miliatha, twins with such an unusual feature matching that of the royal family would eventually be noticed. Thus it was with great sorrow that she parted the children. Silverantha was sent to the South and the sea village of Mirque where she would blend easily with the family of Besany’s golden-featured brother. As for herself and Dekon, Besany took the boy with her to the wooded lands of Cetarn where they joined the dark-haired people of her late husband.

Only seven years of age, Silverantha and Dekon were too young to understand the reasons for their separation, but the parting was felt keenly by both. Despite the distance, the children’s connection never lessoned; until yet another twist of life’s path separated them beyond hope of reunion...