The Silver Doe

Prologue

    A lone archer stood in a field, bow aimed at a target so far in the distance, it was barely visible. She let the arrow fly and you could almost hear it hitting its mark. Another girl in a matching silver dress approached silently from behind, her own bow slung casually across her shoulder. With a move so fast, the human eye could never have detected it, the archer spun and sent an arrow flying at the girl's face. She caught it lightly out of the air. For the first time, the girls acknowledge each other. The second girl gave a curt nod in the archers direction before advancing to stand at her side.

     "The shadows are coming Benicka." She spoke quietly and the soft breeze stole her words as soon as they were spoken.

     "I know." The archers voice was harsher, unfeeling, and although she too, spoke in barely a whisper, her voice was clear and carried far.

    In the darkness, a third girl was watching with wide, unseeing eyes. Her long, black hair and clothes gave her the appearance of darkness itself. She thought she had gone unnoticed. She could not have been more wrong.

     Deep in the vaults of the dead, Sylvia ran her finger along a row of old books, leaving a dustless stripe behind her. She passed slowly, taking time to read the title on the spine of each book. Suddenly, she stopped and pulled a heavy volume off the shelf. Her hands trembled ever so slightly as she wiped the dust off the ancient book and carefully opened it to the first page. She couldn't believe that for the first time, she held the key to achieving her destiny of becoming the first royal sorceress. She was quickly knocked out of her daydream as her magical senses warned her that a girl with long, black hair and clothes, and wide, unseeing eyes, was watching her from across the room. Sylvia pondered momentarily how this stranger, who was not of royal decent had managed to enter this ancestral vault. She wondered further, how she had escaped Sylvia's notice, here of all places, where her powers were so enhanced by the flow of untapped magic in the vaults, but no matter, Sylvia closed the book and turned to face the intruder, but there was no one there.

   Sarah walked along her garden path, smiling up at the beautiful sunset. Little birds chirped as their mothers readied them for bed, the nocturnal animals stretched and yawned, preparing for a new night, and Sarah walked among them, her white cat trailing loyally behind her. The night was warm and cozy as the sun disappeared behind the trees. Sarah shivered involuntarily as the intense feeling that someone was watching her set in. She paid it no heed. The garden always made her feel that way. However, on this particular occasion, someone really was monitoring her every move, a girl in black, with black hair and wide, unseeing eyes, carefully hidden in the shade of the forest.

    In the darkness, the girls in black were silently watching. Watching, and waiting.