Prologue

Every story has its beginning. Every story has its middle. And some will try to argue that every story has its end, too.

That is most certainly not the case. Not in any story, and not in our story.

It has its beginning, and it certainly has its middle. But an end – well, it's hard to say.

Our story is filled with danger and chances. It's filled with betrayal and lust. It's filled with deception and deceit. In short, our story is a love story.

But aren't they all love stories when you get down to it? After all, love is the focus of life. It is the reason for being and the reason for breathing. It is the reason for living and the reason for dying.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Our story starts as any other story would start, with those four famous words that every storyteller has imprinted on his brain at birth – Once upon a time.

Yes, our story does follow the other stories in that sense. But that is where the similarities cease. After those four words, our story begins to take a turn for the worse, a turn filled with danger, chances, betrayal, lust, deception, deceit, and, you guessed it, love.

For our story is a love story.

But let's start where all stories start – at the beginning:

Once upon a time, in a kingdom not too far from here, there were two countries at war, Benoit and Jolencia. They hadn't always been at war, but events that are too long to discuss here set the two countries against each other in an epic battle. For eleven years the war raged on, and then, quite suddenly, it stopped.

The peace came immediately, and the end of the war was shrouded in mystery. The agreement that had been settled between the two countries was kept between their Kings. No one, not even their families, knew what had transpired in the war council that day between the two mighty rulers.

Two years after peace had been declared for no apparent reason, and every year following that, the Royal Guards of Jolencia were dispatched into the surrounding towns of the palace, and ten young men and women were chosen to celebrate the peace that had reigned, as well as celebrate their great king.

They were never seen again.