It was the December of 1864 when two officers arrived at our door. I'd been the one to answer it and had broken down just after seeing their faces. 'Missing in action' they said and a tiny flicker of hope started inside me. After two weeks that flicker had turned into a raging fire turning my heart black with the scorch marks. There was no way to heal it. My brother, my protector was gone forever.
My Ma had never forced me into marriage knowing that the thought of learning to love anyone would remind me of the pain. But now I had just turned 17 and it was unheard of to be married after your 18th year. My Pa was a reasonable man and knew how much it would pain me to look for suitors so he decided he would find a strapping young man for me.
I couldn't do it the pain was too much. I started believing that things around me would move without being touched. I was going insane and I knew then that I could not disgrace my family and I would have to leave.
I gathered my things. A spare dress, my riding cloak and boots. A bow, that Jasper had whittled me the first time we went hunting, along with the arrows. I leapt of the balcony and landed silently on my feet round at the back of the house. I jumped on Niamh my dark brown horse and galloped over the sands that were our home.
We kept running Niamh and me. Soon I was 18 and we had made our home in a forest a long way north of our home in Woodway. We survived of the animals I could kill and the shrubs we could find. But I knew Niamh was growing weaker by the day and soon I would be alone.
I left the small clearing we had found in search of food. A young deer was lapping at a brook. I aimed to shoot went I heard a noise behind me on instinct I turned releasing the arrow from my bow. The arrow moved toward the chest of the most beautiful man I had ever seen. He caught the arrow in his bare hand just before it hit him. I couldn't move and as I watched the arrow moved out of his hand and flew back into its holder on my shoulder.
The man began circling me. "You would make quite the beauty. And powerful. You shall be mine." And with that he lunged at me and bit into the side of my neck on my pulse point.
The pain was excruciating but nothing compared to the emotional pain I had been through before, so I didn't scream, didn't move. I waited.