Prologue

She was ten years old when she first encountered him. It was mid summer, and the large Okuda tree outside her family’s dwelling in the Marnalli Mountains was already beginning to bear fruit. She sat on one of the lower branches, merrily swinging her legs as her brother gathered Okuda pears from the ground below.

Hearing something in the foliage above her, she looked up, and saw, to her delight, a bird’s nest sitting on one of the outer branches of the tree. Wanting to get a closer look, she stood up and began clambering up towards it. She gripped one limb with one hand while placing her foot on another, and pulled herself up, grunting with the effort.

Finally, she was level with the nest. Steadying herself on the narrow limb, she inched forward. The nest was within reach now. In the nest, she could see four speckled, blue eggs, exposed and unprotected. Gripping the branch in one hand, she reached out with the other to touch one.

Suddenly, there was a screech, and something black and furious hurled itself like a projectile right at her head. The parent bird! Startled, she brought her arms up to her face to shield herself. In doing so, she lost her hold on the branch. The next instant, she slipped from the branch and fell…

…straight into the arms of a green-faced creature with a long nose and pointy ears. It grinned, displaying a row of needlepoint teeth. With a shriek, she rolled out of its arms to the ground. When she looked up, it had vanished.

When she later questioned her brother, he informed her with wide eyes that her rescuer was the Greoblin, a creature of great menace who took pleasure in creating havoc wherever he went. Anyone who saw him knew that their luck was about to end, or perhaps even their life. So nobody liked to speak too loudly of the Greoblin, lest he should hear, and come to find them. It was said that he was a Fey, one of the magical creatures who live in another realm. But the Fey banished him from their realm, so he came to Marnalli, residing in a massive stone fortress deep in the Marnalli Valley ever since.

“But I’ve never heard of him helping anybody,” her brother frowned.

“Maybe he’s had a change of heart,” she suggested with a smile.

“Somehow I don’t think so. He’s bad news. Be careful.”

“Aren’t I always?”

Her brother’s eyes flicked to the Okuda tree, its branches gently waving in the breeze.

“Of course you are. How could I have ever doubted that?”

Chapter 1 - The Assassination Attempt

She walked through the market place, winding through the varied stalls with scruffily-clad vendors announcing their wares, and past women in crudely cut dresses clutching a whimpering baby in one arm, and a laden basket in the other. Everywhere she went, people stopped to stare at this strange, young woman with straight, black hair and wide, brown eyes.

Of course, they quickly looked away, not wishing to be seen gawking, but still they watched her out of the corner of their eyes, curious and quietly amused. A gaggle of young children, who had been playing in the street, began openly pointing and laughing as she passed.

The reason for all this was because she was strolling down the street, loudly and happily singing in a lilting, peculiar manner. She seemed oblivious to people’s astonished faces as she passed, and they shook their heads and some even made gestures to the effect that perhaps this girl was not wholly sane.

However, even having some cheeky townspeople putting their fingers pointedly in their ears as she passed seemed not to deter her, and she persisted with her strange, unearthly wailing, smiling all the while. She left the market, leaving a buzz of bemusement and mirth behind her, and headed down the bustling cobbled streets towards the castle.

The castle was situated on a thin thrust of land that jutted out onto a lake, so three sides of the castle were surrounded by water. It was built of white, marbled stone, with towering spires and well-kept courtyards all contained within a high outer wall. It was more than suited to being the plush home of a King. The town stretched all the way up to the entrance of the castle; a number of tradesmen had set up shop on the land-bridge, knowing that a likely customer would be the King himself.

She had stopped singing upon reaching the land-bridge; it had taken the impressive, white form of the castle looming majestically above the thatch-roofs to finally silence her. Smiling, she approached the castle gate, where a solitary guard stood, straight and perfectly still. In his left hand, he held a long and menacing-looking spear, adorned with barbs which glinted as if new. However, they might have been new; the guard looked very young, even though his face was almost obscured by a large helmet, and he donned the bulky armor of the King’s forces, with a sheathed sword within easy reach of his free right hand. Even so, he was tall, and looked suitably intimidating, as a King’s guard should.

Boldly, the young woman stepped up to him and waved enthusiastically at his expressionless face. He frowned slightly, and responded,

“Just ‘hello’ would be enough, you know, Jadelin.”

Jadelin laughed. “I wasn't sure you’d seen me!”

“Well, of course I had, I’m a guard, I’m supposed to notice everything, aren’t I?” With that, he quickly and surreptitiously glanced around to check nothing suspicious was going on, then turned back to Jadelin. “Why are you here anyway? I’m supposed to be on duty.”

“Are you saying you can’t even spare a few seconds just to talk to your own sister? I’m surprised at you, Samuel.” Jadelin pretended to look hurt and Samuel frowned for the second time. He was a soldier now; a guardian of the King. But he was also the guardian of his younger sister, ever since their parents were killed in an avalanche three years previously.

“I don’t want to get in trouble, that’s all. But of course you can talk to me. You can always talk to me, you know that. Now, tell me what it is and hurry up.”

“It won’t take long. I just wanted to tell you that I had a very strange dream last night...” She paused for that to sink in. Samuel looked at her blankly for a moment.

“Is that all?”

“No, wait, I haven’t told you the dream yet-” She was flustered. “-it’s important!” She leaned forward and whispered, “It was about the Greoblin!”

Samuel shuddered. “What about that monster?”

Jadelin opened her mouth to reply, then stopped as she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. She peered past Samuel’s armoured form, and gasped.

“Samuel…” she started, as her brother sharply turned to face whatever it was that had startled her.

“What the…?” he said in disbelief. Guards from all round the castle perimeter were walking towards them, all at a similar slow pace. The closest guards were only yards away, advancing upon the pair with strangely blank expressions on their faces. As Samuel and Jadelin watched in puzzled astonishment, the nearest guards stepped up to them and stopped in front of them, still staring into space. More joined them, until about twenty guards were gathered outside the castle gate, facing Jadelin and her brother, staring vacantly into the distance.

“What is going on?” Samuel turned to his sister. “You better go home, Jade.”

“What’s happening?” Jadelin asked, her eyes wide.

“I don’t know, just go!”

Jadelin hesitated a moment, then turned to leave.

Just then, the main gate of the castle burst open, and a further gaggle of guards came rushing out. They skirted the group of stationary guards, and then saw Jadelin. One of them pointed, shouting,

“Arrest that girl!”

Jadelin stood rooted to the spot in surprise as two guards grabbed her by the arms. Then they began trying to drag her with them back to the gate, despite her now frantic protests. Samuel pulled one of the guards round to face him.

“What are you doing? She hasn’t done anything! And just what is going on with these guards?”

The other guard looked at him scathingly. “Well, obviously you’ve been fooled.”

Jadelin, still struggling, was being pulled through the gate by a total of four guards. For a small girl, she had considerable physical strength, which these four guards were now discovering. She demanded to know the reason for her being apprehended, and their refusal to reply led to her struggle becoming greater.

“What do you mean, ‘I’ve been fooled’?” Samuel didn't like the way this conversation was going at all.

“There's been a plot to assassinate the King. Several would-be assassins stole into the castle just now unnoticed and it wasn't until they were in the corridor outside the King's chamber that they were discovered and arrested. As they were led to the prison cells they were actually boasting about how easy it was to sneak inside; all they needed to do was have someone distract the guards and they were in! These guards have been put under a spell.” He indicated the perimeter guards, who were starting to come out of their trance, and were shaking their heads in confusion. Then he continued, “That girl is a witch, and part of the assassination plan.”

“My sister is not a witch!” Samuel cried angrily.

The guard eyed him incredulously. “Oh come on, everyone knows what happened five years ago. She’s marked, chosen by the devil to do the devil’s work. How can you not see it?”

“What happened five years ago does not make Jadelin a witch!”

The other guard tutted. “I thought you and she were practically brought up by one.”

Samuel’s eyes flashed with rage. “Ziandra may well be a witch, but she looked out for us when our parents died. She is not evil, not like you all seem to think.”

“But Jadelin has learned from her, hasn’t she? Sold her soul to the devil…”

“No! Ziandra has never taught Jadelin magic or anything of the sort! My sister is not a witch, I am telling you. She has no magic, only strange dreams. But that doesn’t make her a witch or evil or working for the devil!”

The other guard paused, momentarily confused. “Well, if that’s true then… how come all our perimeter guards were put under a spell?”

“I don’t know, I just know that it wasn’t Jadelin.”

“You’re going to have to convince the Captain of the Guard of that.”

“Fine. I will.” With that, Samuel stormed past the other guard and marched through the castle gate.

The cell was dark, damp and reeked of human excrement. Jadelin crouched in one corner, not daring to sit, staring at the lichen-covered stone walls. She had been shoved into the cell so roughly by the guards that she had lost her balance and crashed onto the hard, stone floor. She had picked herself up with as much dignity as possible, but the guards had locked the door and were gone, so she had drifted dejectedly into the corner.

What did I do wrong? She thought. I only wanted to speak to Samuel. Is that illegal? And what were those perimeter guards doing? She’d never seen anything like it. She slumped against a cold, slimy wall. How long are they going to keep me here? What’s going to happen to me?

However, she hadn't had much time to get used to her new surroundings before she heard the sound of the door unlocking, and then Samuel burst in, followed by one other guard. Jadelin sprang to her feet immediately, but an outstretched palm from the other guard told her to stay where she was. Looking at this guard more closely, she saw that there were notable differences between his uniform and her brother’s. He wore a bright red sash that hung from his right shoulder, and his helmet was larger and more ornate than Samuel’s. She was pondering over this when Samuel spoke.

“Jadelin, this is the Captain of the Guard.” He indicated to the well-adorned man standing next to him. “I’ve explained to him that you are my sister, and innocent, and…”

“Thank you, soldier, for that little introduction.” The Captain pushed past Samuel and strode up to Jadelin. “I can see you are his sister, the likeness is most striking. But that proves nothing. Tell me, Jadelin, what exactly were you doing outside the castle gates this afternoon?”

The Captain’s hard stare unnerved Jadelin, and she swallowed noisily. “I…um, I had to talk to my brother about something.”

“Really. Was it so important that it couldn’t wait until he was off duty?”

Jadelin didn’t dare meet the Captain’s eyes. She studied his boots, noticing they were so shiny she could see herself reflected in them.

“Well… I thought it was that important, yes.”

“But it wasn’t the real reason you were there, was it?”

“Yes it was, there was no other–”

“Don’t lie to me, girl! Twenty of my best guards were put under a spell while a group of assassins snuck in to assassinate the King. We only just managed to stop them. They told us that someone on the outside had distracted the guards. I send a dispatch outside and what do they find? All my perimeter guards clustered around you. I think it’s fair to say they caught you red-handed in the use of witchcraft. Now, tell me the truth!”

Samuel stepped forward in her defense. “Captain, she is telling the–”

“That’s enough from you, soldier! I’ll be the judge of who’s telling the truth around here! Is that clear?”

“Yes, Sir,” Samuel said through gritted teeth.

“Now, Jadelin. I’ve heard that you have had an encounter with…” He dropped his voice to just above a whisper. “…the Greoblin.” He paused to watch the colour drain from Jadelin’s face. “Am I correct?”

“Yes, I have… but how did you know?”

“Everyone knows. Everyone knows, because your encounter with him was most unusual. He saved your life, didn’t he?”

“He did. But that was a long time ago now…”

The Captain folded his arms across his chest, and regarded Jadelin with disdain.

“Jadelin, I have reason to believe that you are in league with the Greoblin. His actions five years ago and your actions now confirm it. You are as evil as he is. It is no wonder you were involved in a plot to kill the King. You have tried to fool us all with your false air of innocence, and you even succeeded in fooling your own brother.”

“Now, wait just a minute–”

“What did I just tell you, soldier? Stay out of this! This is my judgment: Jadelin is to be executed tomorrow morning for the crime of using witchcraft to assist an attempted assassination of the King.” With that, the Captain marched out of the cell, beckoning for Samuel to follow him.

Samuel lingered for a moment. “Don’t worry, Jadelin, I won’t let them do this. I’ll find a way to prove your innocence!” Jadelin nodded dumbly, and then Samuel left her. The Captain slammed the door shut, and bolted it. Jadelin listened to their boots echoing down the corridor, gradually fading into silence. She then slumped to the floor, and tried not to let the tears come. She failed. Soon, she was sobbing noisily and uncontrollably, despair seeping into her heart.