Scarlet Prayers

Prologue

Embrace the silence

'Cause there's nothing

That can change the way I feel

Taken all that you wanted

Now there's nothing

That can change the way I feel

Hold on, little girl

The end is soon to come...

Someday you'll know the pain

Someday the light will break through

And nothing you tell yourself

Will save us from the truth

Sick by Evanescence

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1914

Like many of the children her age, Nicolette had always done as told. She just made sure to have fun as she did. After all, she was only fourteen. She was well near the proper age of a woman of her time. Soon to be married off. She, however, was one of the less fortunate ones. She was already being courted but she never got a chance to wed him for she was already promised to another. Not willingly, of course.

"Get up! Nikki come on we have to leave!" Edith did her best to wake her slumbering daughter. She shook her almost frantically to rouse her. Her calm façade did nothing but set the frightened teen on edge as a wild, frantic look flashed in Edith's eyes the same way it did when war swept through West Birkshire. Nicolette had lost two brothers in war as well as Edith two sons. Nic knew her mother to know not all was well.

"Mama? What's going on?" Nicolette asked blearily, wiping her eyes as she did so. Fog had settled over the land and it was beginning to become lighter. The sun was far from being seen so a chill swept through the house as the covers were heaved off.

"No time. We have to move, now." Edith hastily replied. She gently assisted Nicolette out of bed and helped to get her shawl on. She draped it over her shoulders, all while rushing her out of the door.

Edith let the horses loose from the carriage and assisted Nicolette on a decent horse. She slapped its rear and it shot forward. Edith got on hers and hassled to catch up with her daughter. Nicolette was tail lengths in front of her. Her horse started to slow about half way down the dirt road before turning onto the cobblestone that ran through the middle of town. Edith easily began to catch up. She drew near enough to Nicolette's horse and grabbed the rein, pulling the horse closer to her own. She heaved her daughter off and continued on. She didn't get too far. Not far enough out of their jurisdiction. Edith knew what she had done could be considered treason, technically not, but they would make sure to make it seem so.

The horse suddenly reared, it taking everything the two had to stay on, and stopped.

"She is to come with us. Your plan to escape was futile even you knew. Hand her over." Someone sneered. Nicolette tried to look around the slender body of her mother to see who jeered such a command at her clearly shaken mother.

"No." Edith whispered. "She's the only one I have left."

Someone came behind the horse and grabbed Nicolette by her stomach. She shrieked almost immediately from their cold touch. "Mama!"

Edith looked to her daughter in turmoil, not daring to voice her thoughts. She got off the horse and attempted to comfort her crying child but someone came behind her. He pulled her away from the man holding her hysteric child.