By Midnight Blood

Prologue

Before the beginning
———————————————

"Mama!, look what I found!" A child called to her mother from under the shade of a tree.

"Come here and show me, Daughter." She smiled from her blanket on which she sat, her adoration for the small girl in front of her eternal. The girl's black hair and eyes were her own, but the skin and the face were her husband's.

Her bright eyes shone as she showed her mother the trinket she had found in the underbrush. It's dull radiance glimmered in the sunlight, and the Mother frowned. This day had turned grim in but a moment, and her blood ran cold.

"Put it down, darling. Put it down." She ordered, her voice but a hushed whimper. The child threw the necklace back into the thick bed of thorns, and ran to her mother.

"I'm sorry, Mama. I didn't know what it was." The girl cried into the mother's waist.

"It's fine, my Darling. All is well. I'll tell you a story on the way back home." The mother barely managed to choke out, the image pressed onto the locket still burnt behind her eyes. They began the short walk back to town.

"There once was a girl. She was curious, and the townspeople adored her, much like her mother and father did. She walked everyday into the woods to pick from the berry bush for her mother to bake berry tarts every weeksend. But once she strayed from the path, distracted by a butterfly flying on the wind through a new path into the deep wood." The mother began, holding her daughter's hand and looking back at the necklace where it lay entangled in the shrubbery.

"That girl was dumb. You never stray. You get lost." The child interrupted, confusion twitching in her brow.

"And lost she was, now surrounded by tall dark trees and unfamiliar ground. The girl was scared, so she fell against a tree trunk and wept. She cried for help, but no help came. She felt eyes watching her from deeper in the wood, and she silenced out of fear."

"What happened to her, Ma?" The child once again cut in, her hair a neat braided rope dangling to her waist.

"Let me finish the story or you'll never find out. Well, this little girl was afraid and alone, but she saw a glint out of the darkness, and scrambled towards it. She held the necklace against her chest, hoping it would take her home. It only attracted the wolves." She stared blankly ahead of her, recalling the story so her daughter wouldn't make the same mistake.

"There was too many of them. The necklace had done nothing but lead her to death, and the girl cried for help once again. Luckily a fisherboy was near enough to hear her pleas for help, and he came to her aid. He pulled her up a tree and waited with her until the wolves left.

That took three rises of the sun before the animals were weary enough to flee. He led her back to town, and to her worried parents, and she threw the necklace down into the well never to be seen again. She still feels the eyes on her every night." She concluded, wiping a tear from her eye so her daughter wouldn't see.

The girl frowned and her eyebrows knitted in confusion, "What happened to the fisherboy?" The child asked, looking up at her mother with question.

"I married him." The mother smiled.

"So the girl was you. And the fisherboy was Papa." The girl mused, squeezing her small hand in her mother's grip.

"Yes. Me and Papa fell in love, and we kept seeing each other until he asked to be my wife. Then we had you, and everything was perfect." The mother smiled, now walking past the bakery in town.

"Was that the same necklace? From the story?" The girl asked, stopping to roll her pants up to save them from the mud.

"Yes. I don't know how it got there. Maybe someone found it, and dropped it in the woods," The mother frowned, thinking this unlikely, "but the lesson from that story is to never stray, and never, ever go find that necklace. Understand?"

The girl nodded, "What does it do?"

"Terrible things, Liridia. Terrible, awful things."

——————————————————
Be warned: this is PREQUEL to 'Liridia'.

Welcome back. Did you miss me? I can tell, I hear the excited screams of mainly just MasterOfAwesomeness1 , QueenOfPheasants and QueenOfPillowNation . But I can tell this book is going to be exciting.

I know most people probably skip these things (I know I do) but I would love to give a big thanks to QueenOfPillowNation for making this glorious cover. You did well, young padowan.

As you now know (as I am about to tell you, silly) this is the prequel to 'Liridia'. It's gonna be great fun.

Have fun unraveling this, readers. I do love a good bit of intrigue. Until next chapter, farewell... for now.