Prologue

Lacuna of Plaustra has this feeling. Though Plaustra is a small town it was already attacked numerous times. On this particular day Lacuna was running through the vast expansion of land that led from her home. She was sent by her mother to go and tell her younger brother Morguin to return home at once for they must move out immediately as they were under attack yet again.

Running barefoot on wet grass Lacuna made herself run up the steep hill and into the meadow where the sheep were herded. She called out to Morguin.

“Brother!” she cried. “Morguin! Time to bring them back. Mother wants us to get ready to leave!” When there was no response Lacuna went further into the meadow calling her brother as she ran. She could feel the squishy grass beneath her feet but took no notice of it. She could feel the dirt settling in between her bare toes but took no care or thought of that either. Morguin! Where was he? She screamed and screamed panic and fear rushing through her body.

Finally she screamed herself hoarse and sank to the damp grass with tears swelling up in her eyes. Thoughts of what might have happened to Morguin rushed through her head. Morguin with his frightened sheep. She had not seen a single one as she had rushed through the meadow.

Shakily Lacuna got to her feet and headed back down the steep hill at a slower pace. She was too distressed and disheveled to rush to the aid of her mother and father who were hastily getting ready to move out before the soldiers of Vindengrahd overtook them.

When she reached the bottom of the hill Lacuna made a run for her home. Even as she tripped over tree roots and stumbled over piles of rubble she still managed to keep at a fast paced run.

At last she could see her little house in the distance. But when she was close enough to really see it she hesitated and wondered if she was really where she thought she was.

Her home was not the little three-roomed cabin that she had seen only five minutes ago with it’s recently purchased glass windows and thatched roof. It was now a pile of decaying ash.

Not even realizing it Lacuna found herself screaming and crying out. She raced around getting bucket upon bucket of water from the stream that was just across the road in the woods. After putting out the fire she found what she dreaded. Two bodies were underneath the burning wood and glass.

Her mother’s body was hot and red and in some places even black. The look on her face in her eyes was nothing but fear. She could not believe what was happening to her and frankly now neither could Lacuna. She dreaded glancing over at her father’s body but did so anyway with great effort. His face and eyes wore the same expression. They were horrified looks, the ones held in his face that was usually so kind and set back with that sense of ease as if nothing would ever happen.

She did not find Morguin’s body.

For the rest of the day Lacuna shed her tears for her dead parents and dug two very large vast holes. In one she set her mother and in the other her father. She marked each with an oar from her father’s boat that had been unharmed by the burning. To tell them apart Lacuna took a strip of her long dark brown hair and cut it off with a sharp rock and tied it to her mother’s oar.

She knelt there for a while. She knelt right between the oars weeping over a family she had loved and now had lost.

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