**This is chapter one of my NaNoWriMo novel, Amiada Rising. I hope to post this in chapter increments, every week or so till it's all up! I hope you enjoy; personally, I feel like with this project, the first a lot of chapters are entirely set up for the last 5 or 6 chapters of action. Butttt, I'm posting it anyways. It was a good exercise in writing, and I enjoyed every minute of it!
Thanks so much for reading!
Eva Marie
I reserve all rights to this story. Just read and enjoy**
It was a night like any other, so it seemed. I stood on the edge of the cliff, staring out at the valley below, over the twinkling, soft lights of the city below me. Tonight was the last night I would be seventeen. When the violet moon, Amiada, rose to the highest point in the sky, I would be eighteen.
I would officially take the title of the Grand Duchess of Irisynne, as left to me by my grandmother, Evangilene.
I suppose some explanation is required.
With that one move, I would gain control of one of the largest tracts of land in Alizaima, I would gain significantly more influence than my mother, and I could officially be considered for other important positions.
As it happens to be, my generation is moving into position to take over Alizaima. Every three generations, the elders stepped down to let the young take over various positions; not all at once of course, spread out through the Year of Rebuilding.
As it happens now, I turn eighteen ten days before the Year begins.
I will be one of the first eligible for one of the most important positions in the land; the Doyenne of Knowledge. The Doyenne is the one who gets to decree what knowledge gets passed throughout the whole land. Most of the time, a good portion is passed along to the people, added to the Library, given to the Grandeor of Books and his Assistant to put in the next set of knowledge to be distributed across the lands.
Yet there are a few things that are withheld, kept secret from the people; highly influential things that ended up shaping the destiny of the land, oftentimes.
I crave to be privy to that knowledge.
Earlier this night, I had slipped out of my house, after my parents had gone to bed. Tiptoeing to the window, I had shimmied down the lattice that was placed directly outside my room. The rough wood pricked my skin, snagged at my dress and hair, and I cursed inwardly. Hitting the ground below me, I rolled underneath the bushes, twigs and leaves sticking in my hair. My breath came heavy, as I heard one of our personal guards wander by the house.
Waiting until the footsteps passed out of range, I made a mad dash for the low stone wall that surrounded our manor, kept me in from the streets. Scaling it easily, I dropped down to the other side louder than I wanted to. My heart was pounding through me, and my pulse pervaded my hearing. Shaking my head, I glanced swiftly down the street each way, and then, seeing no one, I took off at a jog, sticking to the stone wall, in and amongst the shadows.
I ran for an amount of time that I could not keep track of. The incline of the ground I was running on grew steeper, and my breath became a bit more labored. The road had given way to a trail, which was now just a deer path, up the side of the mountain. A stick cracked somewhere behind me, and I stopped in my tracks, trying to clear my head enough to hear what was behind me. It was still and quiet behind me, and after a few tense moments, I continued to move onward, up to the top of the cliff.
Sincerely, I hoped that was nothing that was out to get me. I had a fear of things that went bump, or in this case, crack, in the night.
I could see the huge bend in the road ahead, and I slowed to a walking pace, unable to keep up with a run. Rounding the bend, the moon broke through the clouds, and I walked to the edge of the cliff, overlooking the town.
