The explosion rocked the house as the young woman gathered up a baby barely a day old.

"You must take her," the woman in the bed, the baby's mother whispered. "She is the only hope for our people."

"What about you?" The young woman asked, "Molly if you stay here, they'll kill you."

Slowly, even though it caused her great pain, the woman pushed herself up.

She got out of bed, and walked to the fireplace, reaching up and getting the sword that hung over it.

"She is more important," she said, turning and facing the other woman. "Mina, please, take her."

Mina nodded and quickly pushed up a wall, clutching the baby to her breast as she ran down the secret passageway.

Molly walked over and closed the wall, so the solders wouldn't know where they had gone.

Then slowly she walked out of the house.

Mina finally came out of the passageway, into the forest, turning for a moment as she heard a woman's dying scream.

Then she looked down at the baby in her arms, who stared solemnly back at her with haunting blue violet eyes.

"We're the only ones left Alastrina," she whispered, before covering the baby up and leaving the house behind.

Trina stood up and stretched her back with a groan, finally finished organizing the pantry. For the last five years since she turned fifteen she had been working in the only inn the small town she had grown up in had. She had been a small child of two when Peter and Hanna had found her alongside the road, hidden partially in a ditch. A few miles ahead, they had found the ravaged body of a young woman, obviously her mother. Peter and Hanna had rescued her, adopting her after Trina could only tell them her name and nothing else.

Five years ago, Peter and Hanna had died of the wasting sickness, leaving her alone in the world again. But Trina had been luckier than most of the children left orphaned by the sickness. She had found a good job, one that provided a roof over her head and three meals a day.

Trina smiled as she left the pantry, her work was done and once she cleaned up, she could go to the fair in town.

She climbed the stairs to her attic room, and changed her dress, before looking in the mirror and repinning her hair back up. For a moment, she stared at herself; she knew she wasn't a beauty. Her hair was an ordinary brown and her facial features were plain, but she still was noticed, because of her blue violet eyes.

"Haunting," she whispered, then frowned, wondering where that word had come from.

Shaking her head, she turned away from the mirror and left the room, hurrying down the stairs and out the door. The weather was beautiful outside, warm, with the smell of spring, and Trina called out to her two friends, Jillie and Kirstin, running to catch up with them.

The three friends had a wonderful day, giggling at the handsome men they saw, and gasping over the beautiful items for sale at the fair. Trina was looking at a ribbon that the saleswoman said matched her eyes, when she felt a sudden chill go down her spine. Slowly she dropped the ribbon and turned, not hearing when her friends asked her what was the matter.

The music and noise of the fair seemed to dim as Trina met the eyes of a large man across the clearing. She didn't know who he was, but she knew that he was a danger to her.

"Conchobhar," she whispered and he smiled ferally as if he heard her, which Trina knew was impossible.

He took a step forward and Trina turned, grasping for a weapon, anything she could defend herself with, even though she didn't know why.

She grabbed a silver dagger that was for sale on the next table and turned, throwing it.

As she watched in shock and amazement, the dagger flew in a straight line at the man, but he disappeared before it hit him.

"Trina," Jillie said, "why did you do that?"
Trina looked at the other woman and realized in shock that she hadn't seen the man.

"I have to go," she whispered, before stumbling away, oblivious to the calls of her friends.

Somehow Trina made it back to the inn and ran up the stairs, into her room where she closed and locked the door.

She stumbled to the mirror and looked at her reflection, but gasped when she didn't see it. Instead she saw a beautiful woman with the same color hair and eyes as her.

"Mother," she whispered and the woman smiled.

"Yes," she said softly in Trina's head, "I am your mother."

She reached a hand out...

"It is time, Alastrina," she whispered, and Trina gasped as her mother's hand went through the mirror as if it was made of water. "It is time," she whispered again, touching Trina's cheek.

As she felt the warm impossible touch of her mother, she felt her knees buckle, and then everything went black.