Prologue
Never has a rose bloomed in December. Roses flourish in the warm months of spring and summer, not in the cold twisted month of December.
Why call such a cold month such a beautiful name? A deceptive, yet truthful lie.
In a small mountain village every winter one purple rose blooms. They call it the Rose of Deah. Deah was a young beautiful woman who lived in the village long ago, she fell for a stranger who broke her heart. He would come and go, acting like there was nothing wrong and always come back with someone new. Deah became sick with her blood lust, the desire to kill him and every girl he was with was almost unbearable for her. She slept through the day, and came out at night, her eyes were blood red in the light, pitch black in the dark. Soon girls began to go missing, no one knew where they went only that in the morning there was a single purple rose on their beds. And then he was gone, she came one night and stole him from his home and killed him.
The village found him hung from the oak in the middle of the town, his heart ripped out of his chest. His eyes were torn from the sockets, his tongue missing, and his ears gone. A note was written on a board hung around his neck reading: He shall no longer speak, hear, or see the beauty of life. His heart is gone because he was not worthy to have it.
17 Years Later
Her name was Ardhoniel. She was a young girl of 17 living in the village of Edhelwen. During her childhood she was tormented because she was different. She refused to be like the other girls, clean and well mannered. She liked to run and be free like the boys were. They didn't have to abide by any silly rules, like they had to be in their Sunday best for dinner.
She had no reason to be like them. They all accused her of being like her mother, a woman accused of witchcraft, murder and being a vampire. Her mother had been hanged for witch craft, burned at the stake and then her ashes were sealed in a mirror lined box and thrown into the ocean soon after she was born. The man who everyone said was her father had been murdered by her mother for having several affairs. The town's people let her mother, Deah, live until she had given birth. Ardhoniel cursed herself and wished she hadn't been born without her mother. Instead she had an elderly couple in the village looking after her. The one thing she looked forward to every year was when the gypsies came into town, they always made her feel welcome and now that she was old enough, they would happily bring her into their family…..
Chapter 1: Gypsy
She walked along the roadside, waiting patiently for the gypsies to come to town. She was excited to become a member of the troupe, a place where she finally belonged.