Chapter One
Head bowed in silent acceptance of her fate, seventeen-year-old Serena Tsukino trudged along the craggy, uneven ground, the chains of captivity clinking menacingly at her hands and feet as she walked: a constant reminder of the hopeless situation that she now found herself in. Her bare feet struck a particularly large rock and she cried out as her legs were jostled from underneath her, causing the girl to tumble to the ground and hit her head. Serena flinched involuntarily as a large hand clamped over her forearm, hauling her unceremoniously to her feet.
"You worthless girl," sneered a voice in her ear, the same hand coming to slap her roughly across her face. A single tear tumbled down Serena's cheek. At one time in her life, she would have been brave; she would not have let the degrading words affect her as they were doing now. But this was no longer her life: her life was just a meaningless object in her captors' hands. The same captors who had taken away her freedom…
The heat bore relentlessly down on her back and Serena paused to take a moment's break and wipe a bead of sweat from her brow. A smile touched her lips as she looked briefly around before resuming her work, gathering in the crops which were now fully-grown and ready to harvest. Although she was not as well off as some of the women she knew, her master was a kind man and treated her with respect and the men and women who worked beside her were very pleasant to talk to. A momentous frown creased her forehead as she reminded herself that she was one of the lucky ones. Many other villagers had been employed into households where the family treated them unkindly, where they were forced to work in horrendous conditions and given very little food to eat. A shiver ran down her spine. She silently pleaded that one day, they would be freed from the torment that they suffered and learn that the world is not such a cruel place after all.
After the huge fire that had torn through the tiny village little more than a year past, many houses had been destroyed, forcing many families to find jobs in working for the wealthier in order to pay for all the damages that had been done to their homes. The fire had destroyed all the crops – which at the time was plentiful and ripe for harvesting. For months, the remaining food had to be rationed amongst the village – the better-off gaining their fill before all others. There were talks of waging a rebellion due to the unfairness of this scenario, but because many families were under the employment of those involved, the rebellion was not carried any further for fear of being put out on the streets.
Through time, the small village had slowly begun to build itself again. This year's harvest, though not as vast as the previous year's, would feed the inhabitants of the village nonetheless, ensuring that no family, rich or poor, would go hungry over the long winter ahead. But recently, a threat had been growing on the borders: one that could easily grow and become a potential hazard if not stopped. It was rumoured that wild bandits, turned out from their own villages, had been progressing closer to the village by the day, armed with lethal weapons which could mercilessly kill a person with one blow. As many of the weapons possessed had been all but destroyed during the fire, the village was an easy target if the bandits were to break through the barriers. So far, a few attempted raids on the village had been quelled by the bounders, but the bandits were steadily increasing in number, becoming more and more cunning as survival was forced upon their minds.
As if to correspond with her thoughts, the sharp note of a whistle echoed through the fields, drawing everyone's attention and ensuing chaos. In a frantic wave, the workers began pouring out the field in torrents, the natural instinct to save themselves pressed upon every shoulder. Her scythe still clutched firmly in her sweating palm, Serena allowed herself to be pulled along by the others but when she reached the edge of the field, a new panic gripped her heart: her home was a long way away. She very much doubted that she would make it there in time before the bandits attacked the village. She raised frightened eyes to look over her shoulder. A great mass of bodies poured out of the woods, weapons raised as they emitted a great roar of triumph. Already, they had ransacked most of the houses near the forest, emerging with sackfuls of jewellery and precious items and terrorising the villagers by setting fire to homes, heedless of who was still inside.
Serena gasped as she looked wildly around her, looking for a means of escape or a shelter in which she could hide until the bandits retreated. But doors were slammed in her face and every nook and cranny had been barricaded. She stood still in the middle of the deserted village as the bandits came ever closer to her, killing as they went. She was doomed.