Chapter 1

Maya opened her eyes; the rising morning sun was streaming in from her large window. She blinked, dazed, by the sun in her eyes. She sat up and walked across the smooth stone floor to her large window and looked out across her father's kingdom.

People were walking up and down the many paths connecting the houses, bakeries, blacksmiths, and other numerous shops. The valley looked breathtaking at this time of the morning.

From here, she could see the knights preparing horses for their rounds, and the guards coming from their lower houses farther down the valley, to take the morning shift. She could even see way down in the rockiest part, at the foot of mountains, where peasant houses were snuggled in the rock.

The peasant children were running around down there and the men were heading to the mine for work.

Further up the path, the guard's crooked wooden houses were busy. With the children running to school, and the women socializing as they hung up the washing and either greeted there husbands coming back from work, or said goodbye as the left for work.

Shopkeepers stone two story houses were just above, in the grassy part of the mountains. The shopkeepers were busy heading off to their various shops and the younger children skipped happily to school. Some of the older children rode there family's horses to the school house.

Anything above near the valleys top was where the nobles lived and the shops were there as well. With their large, bright, stone brick houses and the noble children in bright clothing riding in their family's carriage to the school house.

Some of the older, noble children went to the collage and wore royal blue robes to show that they were apprentices of the collage and were to be respected. You had to be very good in your studies to attend and sometimes even the royals themselves did not get accepted into the collage.

Her thoughts went to her older brother who was attending the collage and was probably getting ready to go there now, he had resigned himself from the being second in line for the throne and was training to become a professor. Her father was a bit upset when her brother had told him he wanted to resign, but at the same time, proud of his son.

Even if something happened to her eldest brother, the crown prince, then he still had his third son to rule. He even had her, his daughter and the youngest to rule if worst came to worst. Though he was always telling her, from when she was little that when she grew up, ruling the kingdom would not be her job, which, she never doubted considering the three brothers before her.

Her mother died when she was two, giving birth to a fifth child who was going to be her younger brother, he lived for two days before dying as well. Try as she might she could only remember a few things about her mother, she knew the way she looked because of a portrait of her smiling in the great hall. Sometimes Maya thought she could remember her laugh or her voice but it could be of her imagination. Her father told her that her mother sounded and looked like her and that her mother had been a great queen but that is about all he would say. Her brothers told her a few things about her mother but they were young too, when she had died.

A knock on the door made Maya start, she looked at the sun and realized that it had risen fully and it was time for her to get up. Her maid walked in.

"Up early again my lady, I see," She said with a bit of disapproving in her voice. "a princess need her rest."

"I had plenty of sleep, Grace" Maya said, reassuring her. "I was just looking at the beautiful morning it is today."

"Yes, I am sure it is," Grace answered rather huffily as she set out Maya's breakfast. "I haven't been able to see much at all this morning. She muttered, thinking Maya couldn't hear.

"What was that?" She asked.

"Nothing," Grace said hurriedly. And that was Grace for you. She had been Maya's servant since she was seven and though she seemed like resentful and miserable old lady, it was just part of her personality to pretend that she has it so bad and everyone else has it better than her.

Maya sat down to eat as Grace began to make her bed. "What do I have to do today?" Maya asked.

"Well, other than your studies," Grace began. "You get to have lunch with your father and brothers, you get to oversee the decorations for you brothers coming of age ball tonight, you get to have the final fitting for your ball gown and you get to attend the ball." She said, empathizing each "get" because Maya had asked "what do I have to do today". "Thank you for that Grace." Maya said exasperatedly.

"Of course, my lady" Grace said, smiling, because she had proved her point.

Character change

Jade woke to the sound of a chicken squawking nervously in the coop. Her heart squeezed tightly in her chest. Please don't be a creeper again she thought and slowly stood up and walked to the window that faced the chicken coop. She sighed in relief; it was just a zombie that would soon burn in the sun rise. It gave a low moan and stared at her through the window, trying to find a way to the door were it could pound against until either the daylight killed it or Jade got impatient with it and killed it herself.

She sat back down on her lumpy straw mattress and watched the sun as it began to rise; she looked down at the street as it wound around the small peasant rock houses. Her eyes following the path until it started to climb up the mountain and she could only see glimpses of it on its way to the palace.

She heard a singeing noise and looked over to where the zombie was burning, still in its last moments of life trying to get to her, pounding mercilessly at the door as his very flesh was burning away. She watched as it burned to nothing but a small piece of rotten flesh. It was almost safe to go outside now, she knew, from years of experience of living in the darkest part of the mountain.

She heard her father shift and snort in his bed, mumbling something. Jade wrinkled her nose at the sight of him as he stumbled up and walked to the water bucket. He stunk from last nights outing at the tavern, as he often did after a tough day mining. He had stumbled in last night as drunk as could be and kept her up, singing songs and stinking everything up. He gulped down water from his cup, spilling all over himself in the process. He drained their water bucket easily and turned toward her. "Go fill this! By the way your just starin' into space it seems like you got nothin' better to do anyway." He said, handing her the empty bucket.

"Fine," She replied and took to bucket, "Anything to get out of your smell." She said as she half ran out the door only stopping to quickly grab her stone sword that lay on the table next to the door. Her father yelled something after her but Jade didn't care, she knew she shouldn't have said it and that she would probably pay for it too, but the wind felt good on her cheeks as she raced to the river to fill the bucket and for now she was out of that mess.

She heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps and looked back seeing a burning skeleton aiming his bow at her. She ducked behind a tree and waited. After a few seconds, she peeked out and saw a pile of bones where the skeleton had been and grinned, before resuming her run to the river, not bothering to collect the bones.

The river came down from the mountains and ran through the valley, in many different streams and brooks. Her house was near the largest section of the river, which was helpful because when it was warm, she could go fishing and collect some of the largest fish in the valley. She bent down at the stream and filled the bucket, with the sweet, cool, water.

Jade jealously watched the knights come down from the palace and head to plains for their morning patrol. Jade had wanted to be a knight for as long as she could remember, she trained herself with her sword as best she cold, fighting with the boys that had the same dream as her. She knew she had to be a noble and that there were very few knights that were girls but, she thought if she could get a job in the king's guard she might prove that she could fight as well as any noble or boy.

The sun had fully risen now and Jade knew she had better head home to her chores of tending to the animals but now that the adrenaline had worn off, she was afraid of what her father might say to her. She stood up and headed slowly to her house.