To Kill the King

Prologue

The girls eyes were the only thing exposed. Her beautiful curls were held tightly in her hand and she barely dared to breath. The men had come. Just as her father had predicted, the King had discovered his treachery and marked him for death. The girl could see her father knelt on the side of the deck, his arms held by two soldiers while he begged and pleaded. One was a young boy who, the girl noticed, could not look at what was happening. He faced away from the woman, away from the man sobbing.

But this mans tears were not for his own life. No, he was crying for the life of his love. Shivering, naked, and broken, the girls mother stood at the end of the plank. Her shoulders shook with a sob as she took in the scene below. The men had boarded the ship just east of the pirate port of Azriel, in the waters infested with monsters.

The girls eyes darted between her father and mother, frozen in fear. What was she to do? If she revealed her presence, she would be jumping off the plank just as her mother is. As if sensing her thoughts, her father searched for her eyes between the small crack in the barrel. Slowly, disparagingly, he shook his head.

The girls heart stopped and she numbly watched her mother die. The men jeered, poking at her mothers breasts and taking a kiss before she is gone. They had already had their way with her, the crimson dripping down her caramel thighs a show of her suffering. Her mothers eyes frantically searched the boat, ignoring the men grabbing her. Finally, finally, she found her daughter hidden in a barrel that was meant for rum.

It seemed as though with that glance, the tortured woman was ready. She softly smiled and reached out a hand toward her daughter. Then, she stepped backward off the plank and fell to her death.

The sobbing man howled and fell limp against the soldiers. He lay limp as they heaved him over their shoulders. He remained limp when they brought him onto the opposing ship, tied him to the railing, and sailed away, his daughter still on shivering alone in that barrel on his abandoned ship.

The girl waited until the blue sails had left her view, and then removed herself from the barrel. She grabbed a knife and chopped off every last ringlet that was on her head, remembering how the men seemed so fond of her mothers.

She took the clothes off the back of a dead young boy pirate, trading them for her white dress. As she changed, she glanced at her mothers white, torn, and blooded slip dress laying next to her discarded dress. l

She grabbed her fathers discarded hat and placed it on her head.

And she stomped to the same plank her mother had just leapt from, peered over the edge, and jumped.

No monsters came to take her life. She figured they were already busy with their recent meal. And so she swam. With every stroke, her fury grew. With every stroke, her heart turned colder and colder until she matched the frozen ocean around her. With every stroke, Gray chanted over and over the promise she had now decided she was going to keep.

I will find you, father. And I will avenge mother.

I will kill the King.