ALIRA

Chapter 1 - first death

Drizzles of rain washed down the old tower rooftop rested on the east wing of the castle, which stood close enough to the front to overlook its stone paved courtyard where hooves plopped in the rain as hundreds of carriages departed from the bright looming castle.

Lightning crackled, illuminating the crowds of people exiting the brightly lit banquet hall in soft murmurs, tunes of song and merriment slowly dying out behind them.

Deep in the earth, half a league of measure to be exact, beneath the castle, lay an old decrepit dungeon.

Darkness loomed over the cold and dreary dungeon. The air was chocked and stale, filled with the stench of rot and decay. Moss crawled along the limestone walls of the prison where cracks and vein like fissures tore through the once solid bedrock, running deep into the earth. Water seeped in through these narrowed cracks, smoothing the once jagged stone faces, and flooding the dungeon.

The dungeon had been built in the days of the first king and was separated into seven smaller chambers, cells, spanning the length of the entire prison. They were carved into the earth and stone, each cell sizable enough to hold at least five prisoners and barred by solid metal gates. The chambers were filled only with the constant sound of dripping water, the slosh of scurrying rats and lightless shadows of darkness.

All prison cells were empty, but one.

In the last prison cell, down a dim watery corridor, Alira, seventh daughter of King Edwin, lay in a muddy pool of water, her breathing rough and feeble.

She was a frail child, her thin twig like feet were covered in scratches and rat bites which had callused over to become one of her many scars. She had ocean blue hair, deep, like cerulean strands of the sea that had been cut out and woven carefully into the pores her skull only had become muddy and unkempt after remaining uncombed for two years. Her hair had become oily and frazzled. It meandered down her head and into the water, reaching all the way to the hem of her raggy worn dress.

The dress had been a gift. Its threads were frayed and jutting out, flaps of ripped clothing hanging by morsels of shorn thread. It was faded from the many washings and was now a cheerless drab of paled yellow.

Alira stared at the ceiling above like she often did, her eyes accustomed to the darkness. She pursed her lips in frustration.

She had been poisoned.

Alira had learned this when she tumbled from her bed hours ago, face first, bruising her forehead. It was why she lay on the ground. Her joints were locked, and her body was stiff, refusing to listen to her instructions.

'I should have expected this,' she thought.

Alira. Gods above, she really hated that name. Look where it had gotten her. She grumbled.

Alira meant 'blessed' in her mother's tongue. Her mother had given it, finally successful in siring a second born for her father and yet Alira often wondered where her mother had picked up the name and if Alira meant 'cursed' instead. Perhaps in a book, used wrongly in one of the many stories she'd read to her, and awfully embellished.

'No way to ask her now,' she thought and turned her head away from the ceiling.

That wasn't truly the true source of her vexation though, or the reason why she more grumpy and fretful today. She could spite her name any day without feeling so incensed. It was just that today was a little...special. It was the third of the second month, the day she was born.

It was tradition to celebrate the day with drink, song and dance.

'But here I am,' she moped. Just another reason more to hate name.