Since that fateful day, the queen had a premonition of her child, a snowstorm settled in the kingdom for several months. The blizzard remained, though spring, summer and fall had passed. In a room in the palace, blood stained the white sheets of the bed. Outside the winds moaned, as the snow flew about furiously. The king sat by the queen's side, his heart breaking by each second. His tears fell onto the silent child, whose green eyes looked up at her mourning father.
"You can't leave yet…I can't live without you…" the king said plaintively.
The queen reached for the child, "Give her to me…We have not named her yet."
"The child is fine…It is yourself, you should be worrying about."
"She is looks just like I had imagined her to be. What shall her name be?" Evelyn smiled lovingly at her child, and then to her husband.
"…"
"Maybe Kathleen? Celena? Hmmm?"
"…"
Evelyn touched the girl's forehead, "She's so snow-white." The king put his head in his hands and wept. Suddenly Evelyn felt a great wave of fatigue and peace come over her. The air in her lungs thinned and her vision grew blurry.
"Her name…her name…"
"What's wrong?! Evelyn!"
"Her name…should be…Aileen."
"Please don't leave me!"
"I'm sorry Tristan. I've caused you so much… sorrow." He held onto her hand tightly.
"Evelyn,
I don't know if I can live without you."
"Promise me, Tristan, to remarry. Don't…don't let her live the life of sadness I had to live…as a child. Promise me… Give Aileen a mother to love…to love her… A mother you can l-love. I will always love you all…" Evelyn's eyelids fluttered and slowly closed, never to wake again.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
It was the year of mourning. So many deaths and losses brought sadness to the kingdoms. Starvation and the cold of the storm reduced the populations of each kingdom drastically. A loved one in each family was lost. In the kingdom of Ilithia, the small baby prince was killed by gypsies. Sadness hung in the air everywhere. A man and his nephew trudged through the snow, in the dark forest. His wife and daughter died of pneumonia, and the child's parents abandoned the boy. The boy and the man were two lonely souls. They were welcomed into the forest where all things abandoned and lost dwell. They were to start a new life together here in the forest.