Note: This story that I have thought up and written is a branch off the story The Claidi Journals: Wolf Queen. It displays ideas and action that actually happened in the story written by Tanith Lee, only in this version it is through the eyes of Winter Raven, or Claidis Star. This story is rated PG-13.

Chapter One

This Book

I didn't want this book.

I received it for my seventeenth birthday, but it was definitely something I didn't expect to use. I just stalked up to my room and threw it onto my vanity.

A few ravens fussed.

I didn't, don't, want to write in this book, but it seems like a shame to waste it. My enemy writes in a book, journal as my mother likes to call it. Perhaps whoever you are, you think it is her writing in this book, but it's me. Claidis Star of Raven Tower. Although me having that name seems quite pointless, she has ruined everything with that name. The man that I have grown up knowing his name, is now never to be mine. Argul. Sweet, strong, and handsome Argul, and true son of Ustareth. He was to be my groom, if it wasn't for her.

It doesn't matter now, I don't want any of it anymore. I much prefer my new name, Winter Raven, although my mother despises it.

As the story goes, My mother, Twilight Star, was at The House and was a princess. As a child she fell in love with a slave named Fengrey. Fengrey, my father, had also fallen for her in return. This was illegal in The House, to have relations with a slave when you were of royalty blood. Having a baby was also illegal in the house unless you have permission, this had become a large problem when my parents were having me. The House told my mother that she could have her child, but when it was born it would be taken away and would become a slave, for life. Twilight not wanting this for me, begged for her mother's help. Her mother is Jizania Tiger.

On the day I was born, a slave child was also being born, at that moment Jizania came upon the solution to my parents problem.

Slaves counted for nothing, they never had, Fengrey was the only slave that ever mattered. Jizania took the slave woman's child and gave it to my mother and told her to pretend that the child was hers, and to beg them to let her keep it. When they took the slave child from my mother's arms they gave it to Princess Shimra, and she gave it to her ghastly daughter, Jade Leaf, to work as a maid. They all thought the slave child was me, but I was safe with Jizania. Later my grandmother gave me to Fengrey and Twilight. They fled The House and came here. That's how my life has been.

When I was sixteen, my previous birth year, I made a trip to Wolf Tower to see my enemy for the first time. The moment I set my eyes on her a passionate hatred flowed through my veins. I watched her destroy the Law, and I was right there when she flew elegantly into my Argul's powerful arms.

Ugh.

I wouldn't have done it if she had been pretending to be someone else. In fact, I would probably be cheering her on. But she destroyed my life.

What did I do? This is a question you may be asking yourself. Well, I'll tell you.

I disguised myself to look like a member of the Hulta, one of the girls that went to the pool with the bride. I did this so I would be with her. Claidi. Ugh. In fact, it was my idea alone to go to that certain pool. I cleverly tricked a Hulta child named Dagger into finding the pool, for I knew that she would fall for my plan. Then, when she came back from doing the "task" I told her to pursue, she told me all about the pool in the forest. It was my clever idea to tell Dagger that the pool would be the absolute best place for the bride to go before her wedding. And so it was, for me at least. I sent a raven, that seemed very eager to become a messenger, to two of my favorite henchmen, Hrald and Yazkool. They flew two mushroom balloons into the forest and caught Claidi. The other balloon that was there was sent for me, and safely took me back to my tower, Raven Tower.

There I wrote a very long letter to Venarion about Claidi. Venarion was Ustareth's first son, but she left him at The Rise and went to join the Hulta where she fell in love and had Argul. The plan was that I would marry Argul and Cladi would marry Venn, but now that she has fallen for Argul I need to get her to Venn so she will fall for him instead. Anyway the sent the letter to Venn. As you may already know, my kind stranger, the letter was all about how terrible my 'sister' was and how eager she was to visit The Rise. The Rise is the place where Venarion's palace is.

Haha. My sister. If only she knew what she really was.

Nothing.

I will stop writing now. It seems like a waste to stop writing in this book. It's all I have now. You are all I have.

And you are the only one who knows the truth.

I will sign my name now so you will always know who I am, unless someone decides to mess with this diary. If that happens I will never write in it again, and it's pages will lay blank forever until they yellow and decay.

Claidis Star