It was lost..
All of it.
Falling and fading away, crumbling into chaos and death.
The canons roar, the hiss of sword to sword..
and the cries of dieing men.
It had been an ambush- this much she knew..
and she remembered hearing them shouting.. yelling.. screaming...
"Don't let anyone out of this alive!"
A massacre...
They hadn't the time to defend themselves. It had been in the middle of the knight when the attack had come, all lords and ladies sleeping in their bed.
It was said they slit most of their throats when they slept..
except she...
Somehow she had managed to run.. scrambling.. feebly frantic through the fire and blasts, the ground shaking as she ran.
And then it happened-
and the white light and noise threw her over...
crumpling her to the ground.
Soon men surrounded her..
The canon fire head not killed her..
but the man planned a much worse death for her.
Her parents, she found out, as seh was kicking and screaming as they held her, had already been killed.
When told what was to be done with her..
they threw a bag ove rher head, chained her wrists, then locked her into a cell.
It was barely morning on the third day when they decided to come back to her-
but the fire and fight was still in her eyes, despite herself weakened from where she was chained upon the wall.
Yes..
they had terrible, wicked, horrible plans for her.
In the morning, on light's first breath. she would hang.
But Katahnia would not allow it.
She spat onto the man's face in defiance, demanding he kill her then-
and so he slapped her, but she merely spat a second time, this time drawing blood onto his face.
The man was so upset, he unsheathed his sword and ran her through..
though not enought o kill her...
Weak, tired and finding herself fading.. Katahnia began to crumple, and the man pressed in his sword.
She let out a scream, and all she heard was their laughter.
"Damn you mages!" he cried. "Damn you all to hell!"
More laughter.
"You.. you pretty little one.." he siad, stroking her cheek as she dizzily raised her head to look at him. "You will be the prime example to them all. In the morning, noose around your neck.. strangling infront of all the world to see for your crimes.."
She reached a hand out suddenly, grabbing his collar tight and wheezed, groaning as she tried to find her breath.
"You will not.." she choked. "You will not be the one to kill me. I will.. preserve my parents dreams."
And just like that, her body began to glow.
Growing fearful, the man suddenly backed away, leaving his sword behind s it appeared the woman might explode...
Killing them all with her.
And she did-
except she did not explode in the way one would think she did, but rather incased herself inside impenetrable crystal, and there she remained to this day-
Locked inside her cell, chained to the wall...
Body imprisoned beneath a shell of hard jewel..
and a sword pressing into it- though it was not incased, except the piece that remained lunged into her side...
a peculiar work of art to find...
a peculiar mystery..
and a beautiful myth.
Now the duchy of Harmond was nothing but a dream....