Prologue
Rift House; 11 years ago.
Evangeline ran through the halls of Rift House laughing. Ptolemus's voice followed her around the sharp corners and behind the draped curtains. "Evie, I'm gonna find you!" His armor clinked loudly, too big on his small body but he wore it anyway. It made their father happy, and when Father was happy things were okay in their house.
Evangeline rounded the bend in the hallway and slid behind a statue. She giggled as she tried to pull her silver dress tighter around her legs. Ptolemus's long shadow appeared on the wall. "Evie are you down here?" He jokingly called as he stuck his head down a laundry shoot. The little girl clamped her hands over her mouth to keep from laughing at her silly older brother. Another shadow filled the hall with them.
"What are you two doing?" Larentia Viper and her growling panther came upon them. "Ptolemus you're supposed to be in training. And where is Evangeline? She has an etiquette lesson soon."
"We're just playing a game!" Ptolemus whined as his mother's harsh grip encircled his arm.
"Games are for children," she hissed. Evangeline shrunk deeper under the statue as the panther started sniffing down the hall. She didn't want to go to etiquette! She hated sitting up straight and memorizing houses and curtsying until she fell over.
Before the panther got to her though, the wall next to her opened and out trotted one of the servants. Evangeline slipped through the closing wall and down onto a dimly lit stairwell leading under Rift House. She'd never been down here before! A slight chill came over her skin and she bundled the poofy dress around her. This would be a perfect place to hide from Tolly during their games! She smiled to herself and bounded down the stairs.
As she reached the bottom the chill got worse to the point that her little arms trembled. How could anyone stand to be down this far? The dirt floor came into view and Evangeline stepped into what looked like living quarters. Beds with thin blankets lined the room and a rickety stove sat along the far wall. Wooden beams held up the ceiling and small bugs crawled through holes. Drafts blew past her with whistling shrieks and a large deep well in the corner was filled with slightly muddied water. Evangeline shrunk back from the scene. She didn't like it down here! She wanted Tolly.
Evie turned to dash back up the stairs when a cough startled her. She cried out and fell to the dirty ground. A few feet behind her was a different door. It wasn't made of wood like everything else, but metal. Evangeline felt better now; she knew metal! She approached the door and knocked on it.
"Who's there?" A voice came from behind it. It was raspy and small, like a child's. It was also female.
"Hi I'm Evangeline!" She pulled on the door handle. It didn't budge. "Are you stuck in there?"
The voice said nothing. Scraping metal sounded as a shadow came under the door. "I don't know." The voice was closer now.
"I can get you out!" Evangeline proclaimed proudly. "I can warp metal, and your door is made of metal."
"No one can get me out," the voice whispered. "I'm not allowed to leave."
Evangeline cocked her head to the side. "Why?"
"She'll be mad," the voice got quieter. "It hurts when she gets mad."
"Don't worry, my brother and I can help you! His name is Ptolemus but I call him Tolly. He's strong and really nice!" Evangeline pulled on the handle again but the door didn't move. "What's your name?"
"I don't know."
"How do you not know your own name?"
"She calls me a name, but I don't like it. It's not nice."
Evangeline started pulling a wooden step stool over next to the door. "Well what does she call you? And who is she?"
"She's my mother I think," the voice sounded confused. Evangeline pressed the stool against the door and got up on it. "and she calls me Rat."
Evangeline looked through the window in the middle of the door. Inside was an all dirt room with glowing stones in the corners. A small bed was along the wall and a bucket was in the one corner. A small girl with silver hair like hers sat against the door. The same glow of the stones came off the shackles around her wrists, the collar around her neck, and the chains attaching her to the wall. She wore brown rags and had marks covering her thin body. Scratches decorated her legs and chest, bite marks varied on her arms, cuts and bruises ranged along her back and whip marks were on her thighs. She shook from the cold, and as her head turned to look up at the window Evangeline saw her face.
She screamed.
"What is that!" She cried as she fell off the stool. The girl inside the room began to cry. "What is that, what is that!" Evangeline backed up but the image was burned in her mind. The gray eye, the white film, the red outlines, the scarred skin, the yellow flesh with blue bruises filling in the indents where bones should've been. Instead the whole side of the face was covered in twisting scars that cut up her lips and showed the hollow bones underneath. She looked like a monster right out of one of Evangeline's nightmares.
Her screams brought her mother running down the stairs with her panther alongside her. "Evangeline Samos what are you doing down here!" Her mother gasped as she pulled the crying girl off the floor.
"What is that," Evangeline whimpered as she pointed at the door. Soft crying came from behind it and the scraping of chains as the creature moved away from them.
"That is none of your concern Evangeline," Larentia hissed. "The Reds live down here, and the Rat belongs to them. You are not to come down here ever again. Do you understand?"
"Yes Mother."
"Good. I don't want you being around the different ones in our house. It is not healthy for the future Queen of Norta."
"But," Evangeline looked over her mother's shoulder as the panther pushed open the door and slipped inside the creatures room. "I don't understand. Why is it different? Why does it look like that?"
Larentia stroked her daughter's hair. "It has different blood then us. That means it is different. Say that Evangeline; it is Red so it is different."
"It is Red so it is different," Evangeline repeated slowly.
"Good girl," her mother praised. The wall opened and the two stepped back into Rift House. Evangeline turned away from the stairs and the opening. She never wanted to go back down there. As she closed her eyes she almost heard a small scream rising up the stairs, but her mother put her hand over her ears and the sound faded with the close of the door.