AN: Keep R&R-ing! By the way, this chapter takes place while Taize is unconscious.
Disclaimer: Still don't own anything. At all. Like an iPod. (glares mutinously at mom)
Chapter Three
Memories
"Taize," her mother was saying, "come inside. It's time for dinner…"
Then Lia was teaching her how to shoot an arrow. Taize was barely five years old, so she wasn't using real arrows, but her aim was uncannily good…
She was four years old, she had asked why she didn't have a father.
"You have never had one," Lia had replied. "He left long before you were born…"
And then the marauders had come. She had been so young at the time, she had been left with only vague impressions of light and sound. But now everything was clear again, as though she was reliving the experience…
Everything was on fire. Taize's own house was burning behind her. People were screaming. She ran crying, trying desperately to find her mother.
She had finally located Lia, but she was covered in terrible burns and would surely die soon. She gave Taize her necklace, made her promise to protect it. Taize had sworn that she would…
Then she had run, run for days as though her life depended on it – and although her life didn't her freedom did.
She had escaped, but she hadn't planned on fleeing from their oasis and into the Hadarac, so she hadn't thought to get any food or water.
The slavers found her a few days later, half-starved and dying of thirst, but if she had known what her life would be like as a slave, she would have run right back into the desert at the first opportunity.
Despite the fact that she was only five years old, and obviously wasn't much of a threat to them, the slavers had put Taize in chains anyway, and taken her mother's necklace. These were the first events that had fueled her defiance. She'd struggled against the chains, but that had just made them laugh.
Which, of course, only strengthened her resolve. She burned with hatred for her captors, except for one. He was the only one who hadn't laughed, and the only one who would show her any kindness on the long trip to Urû'baen. She later learned that his name was Keb.
"Where are we going?" she had asked him, as naïve as ever.
"To the capital, Urû'baen."
And so they had. She had stepped onto the wooden platform, heard the auctioneer proclaiming, "A healthy young girl…" but unlike the slaves before her, she was unafraid, and glared defiantly into the crowd.
That day she had promised herself that she would never lose that defiance, and it had probably kept her sane for the past eleven years.