Prologue: History Rewritten in Fire and Blood

It was a night full of terror. It was a night filled with pain and anguish. Bodies littering the ground, their blood seeping from their grievous wounds. Soldiers bearing the rearing unicorn of the kingdom of Zeraphina stormed the once quiet village of Ygritte as fire licked every wooden corner. Men, women, children. It mattered not, for anyone with a storyteller's blood in their veins were put to the sword. The one who ordered this massacre of innocents stood before the blazing village, his blade stained crimson. Before him knelt the village chieftain, an old woman whose silver locks were tied in twin braids. Though she was forced to kneel, she never bent to the will of tyrants. Her wrinkled face, once a picture of maternal love and kindness, now held defiance and rebellion. She regarded the instigator with something akin to disappointment. Perhaps even pity. As the cloak of the leader billowed with each gust of wind, he gazed upon the old woman with disdain. The crown atop his head, a symbol of the monarchy, glinted with the flames devouring the village. The king of Zeraphina, broad-shouldered and built like stone, pointed his sword at the chieftain's throat. 

"I will ask you one last time," the king demanded. "Write only the glory of my reign and only the glory. I can do without the unnecessary accountings of—"

"You are a fool," the old woman countered. The king paused as if silently asking her where she got the audacity to interrupt a king. "Do not think the people who suffer under your tyranny will stay quiet. The children of Zeraphina has seen many a dictator like you. And they will stand up to you one way or another." Then she smirked as if recalling a similar time like this one. "Stories have a way of surviving even when its writer ceased to exist. And I raised the best of them." The king glared at the old woman. "So go ahead. Kill me. But remember that stories have power. And truth, no matter how you dress it up, will always prevail." 

The king sneered. "Then I shall rewrite history. I shall be known as a great king. And you will not have the power to stop me." The old woman even chuckled. 

"That may be true. But I have already passed the torch." The old woman smiled in defiance as she recalled the young lass who had been her best pupil. "It will take more than a massacre to quench the flames of the revolution that is to come." A sly glint in her eyes enraged the king further. "You have only made a martyr of us. We will be the foundation of a new kingdom. A kingdom where tyrants like you rot." The king raised his sword and swung. Blood sprung from the old woman's neck as she collapsed into the cold earth. 

The king fished out his handkerchief from his pockets and wiped the blood off his blade. "Burn the bodies. And burn their damn records." He stared at the old woman's corpse in disdain. "I shall not suffer a storyweaver to live. I do not care what happens. I must find all of them and kill them all." 

In the distant mountain path, a young lass about the age of fifteen trudged her way towards Wavecrest Harbor. Her spindly arms ached as she held the Storyweaver's Tome. Her bloodstained clothes clung to her skin, but she did not even dare to stop by a river and clean herself. She knew that if she stopped, the soldiers would catch up to her. And she could not have that. While her crimson tresses stuck to her face because of sweat, she continued to forge on until she smelled the salty sea in the air. At the foot of the mountains lie Wavecrest Harbor. Finally, she thought, I'm safe. Only then did she allowed herself to grieve. She wept for her Grandma Bridget, her father, her mother. The neighbors who helped each other. The children she used to play with. All of her people, gone. Now she was all alone. But Tarina of Ygritte knew one thing: she would never let these stories die. Even if it meant damnation, she would keep her people's story alive and find a way to make the tyrant pay. And so Tarina, clutching the book, found herself among the pirates and merchants of Wavecrest Harbor. Where this story would lead, only time would tell.