The minute my father heard of my mother's demise he led me to one of the many secret passage ways and told me to wait, leaving me with some supplies of food, clothing, case something happened. Aedion, Aelin's cousin, was supposed to meet me there and we would have fled together with some of the other noble children in the hope of keeping Orlon's inner circle alive in case Aelin had survived. Unfortunately my father's plans were ruined by Adarlan's invasion; we had expected it, but not so soon. The reason for that is something I am ashamed to admit but it's the truth, someone betrayed us. And that someone was my uncle, Vernon Lochan. I called him my uncle just that once, never again and any blood we share is a miracle in itself because he is most certainly a serpent, a cuckoo that crawled to Orynth from a nest of vipers. He betrayed us. Then he seized my fathers, my mantle, before his body had even cooled. And while he is my relative, I have no family left.

When I heard the sound of fighting and saw my countrymen fall I knew I could no longer wait. So I fled down the passage ways before I met the same fate at the hands of the Parasite's toy soldiers. I knew that the King of Adarlan would not spare me even if I was a child, I was a coward but I wasn't naïve. He would have killed me as my name was powerful enough that I could pose a threat to him, though Vernon would not. He was already the Parasite's puppet. So I ran down the endless passageways, getting lost more than once until eventually I came out into a mountain cave connecting to the river, I sat down and huddled behind a rock so no one would see me if the Parasite's soldiers found the cave. Finally the grief and worry and shock of the day's events crowed in on me and I drifted off to sleep.

I awoke suddenly to a loud 'Crash!' followed by a deep voice in the darkness which yelled "Clumsy oaf! Pick that up before I box you're ears in!"

Slowly I twisted my body and crept round the rock to see who was there. The light of the moon revealed the five silhouettes of rough, muscular men carrying, or rather smuggling, treasure troves of goods, presumably from the palace. My heart filled with anger. How dare they? How dare they! The wealth that Orlon had carefully stored and accumulated in order to protect and feed his kingdom was being stolen away by a bunch of rag-tag criminals. In my rage I forgot to stay hidden and I let out a cry of hatred, weakened as I was it was more of a mew.

The leader, the man with the deep voice turned to me "Well, well, well, what have we here? A spoilt, palace brat by any chance?" I looked down at my clothes; they were torn but still finely made marking me as one of the nobility. "N-n-no" I said trembling. I hoped they would attribute that to my fear of the threat they posed me and not to my fear of being discovered. "Then how do you explain those?" he said gesturing to my clothes. I had to think fast. "I stole them" I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "My mother worked at the palace. I stole these in the confusion and fled." He snorts, "Whatever for?" Invasions are hardly the time to play dress-up" "Children are impractical like that" I replied. He roared with laughter. "Children also clearly don't care much for a full stomach either, jewels would have been more practical." I shrug. "Tell you what, how'd you like to come 'n' work with us?" "Doing what? What are you?" "Pirates, m'dear, pirates" was the reply