The last thing I remember was being brutally ripped from my mother's arms. I can remember only her arms...and her voice, soft and lilting - as if every letter a note, every word a melody. And her arms, her fingers, soft and supple, combing through my hair. Or plucking out a melody on a musty harp that she would carry everywhere.
From my grandmother, she would say.
Treat it with care: indeed, she handled the instrument like a newborn, hands gently cradling the wood, like it were the most precious thing in the world...apart from me she said. I was her emerald. That's what she called me. I can remember. I know I can. And now memories are all I have left. All that are mine now.
But my mother she was strong. When the oak wood of our door, smelling of musty pine and earth, splintered, giving way to three hooded men who ransacked the room my mother and I shared, ripping the tapestry that I knew mother had saved up for, she'd didn't scream or cry. She just held me behind her as the King's Guard grabbed her and pulled her away from me. Ripped from her arms I chased after them, small fist pounding against their arms. Even today, I can remember the way the muscle felt beneath my fingers, bunched and tense, ligaments grinding beneath my fingers. The tapestry set me off.
I remember the day I came home and the elegant embroidery had startled me. The tapestry, depicting Oakwald forest in all its glory, verdant and lush, bursting with emerald and peacock blue and gold and indigo. I loved that tapestry and seeing those men ripping it off the wall and crushing it beneath their feet ripped a part of my soul to shreds.
One backhanded me so hard across the face that my head snapped sideways and I crumpled to the floor.
Nothing after that really, just endless, unyielding blackness. And more men lifting me up and carrying me into a blissful oblivion, where nothing mattered. Nothing except darkness.