The Beauty of Mist, the Beast of Dawn {INDEFINITE HOLD}

Bonus Content: Prologue Draft

Hello friends,

Sorry, I'm back! I know I said I'm done updating TBOMBOD for now—and I am—but I thought I'd give you some bonus content. Up until a few minutes ago, this is what I was considering making the new prologue... And now I've changed my mind. (I've decided I want something with more intrigue and excitement.) So I thought I might as well let someone read this draft before it gets buried in my Google Drive. 

I hope you enjoy this very rough draft.

Yours Truly

***

Prologue: Twenty Years Earlier

"Beauty can be found anywhere, even in the gloomiest of places. All you have to do is look hard enough." No one knew the origin of the quote, all potential leads either long dead or long forgotten. Despite the mystery surrounding its dubious origin, or perhaps because of it, it was the queen of Valennia's favorite quote. To Queen Dalilah Garcia, it described her beloved kingdom, her home, perfectly, for Valennia was best known for its lack of size and its sheer, rocky cliffs. However, in a small corner of the kingdom, beyond the village lovingly called Ilah, lay a seemingly endless expanse of green. Mile after mile of grassy hills and valleys stretched in every direction, halting only at the forest that bordered The Unknown.

Most days, the vast landscape was the picture of tranquility, empty and silent save for the whisper of an occasional breeze dancing in between blades of grass flower petals. But on this particular summer afternoon with the sun high in the sky, the grass had been disturbed only by the impressions of human feet, the air abuzz with keen interest and anticipation. Atop a hill, a small one, a few miles out from the village, a crowd of villagers had gathered in a circle, the source of the humming energy. And noise. Lots of noise.

"I can't believe it!" One had exclaimed.

"After all these years," another had agreed.

"A lady on her knees."

"A royal getting her hands dirty!"

"Who would have thought?"

"History in the making!"

All the while, they'd shuffled their feet—back and forth, back and forth—pounding out a warning to the creatures who called the fields their home. Stay away. The humans are out. Stay away!

The villagers had spoken to each other, though not quite, as they all had fixed their eyes on their circle's center. There had stood the subject of their conversation, a party of three: Queen Dalilah, her husband, King Richard, and her best friend, Margaret Hart, the second most powerful witch the world would ever unknowingly know. Well, the newly crowned king had stood. Dalilah and Margaret had been kneeling in the grass, sweat glistening on their foreheads and dirt caked beneath their fingernails. Each woman had wielded a trowel and between them had been a hole growing in width and depth with each passing second. To the side, an oak sapling had quivered, excited at the prospect of its new home.

The tree-planting had been an idea Dalilah and Margaret had imagined for years. Since childhood, in fact. Separately, Dalilah had dreamed of making their already green village greener, and Margaret had coveted the solitude and peace that only a tree could provide. Together, both had sought to inspire a feeling of unity amongst their fellow villagers with this dream, but neither had possessed the material wealth, resources, or power to carry out this plan. Magic, they had long ago discovered—magic in general and developing magic in particular—could only do so much. Now, years later, with Dalilah as queen, they finally could. And so, even as the afternoon sun had relentlessly sent wave after wave of heat down on their backs, they'd dug at the soil in the exact spot they had once so often schemed.