Chapter 1

 

'My Lady, are you done yet? We should be leaving this place...it's getting dark,' I heard the panic in my maid's voice.

'Nearly done Gladis, just hang on for a minute or two,' I shouted back pushing down my skirts after relieving myself behind a tree within the woods, all whilst Gladis watched out on the roadside for any passersby.

However, I found myself reluctant to move from where I stood as I got struck with how beautiful and tranquil all the wild nature surrounding me appeared. A contrast from the busy and loud fortress where I lived and had grown up in as daughter to the ruling Lord in the province, a fortress which literally had hundreds of people coming through its gigantic gate's each month.

My living situation had therefore made me value any peace and quiet I was exposed to, and I would have liked to have stayed a little longer where I was if not for Gladis' mutterings reaching my ears, she predicted our disappearance followed by our swift sacrifice shortly afterwards by the evil that lurked in the woods.

Sighing I started to make my way to Gladis not because I believed or feared for a second all the silly folk tales of a sinister presence in the woods but because I felt guilty that I had made Gladis go with me on an errand to the marketplace then stop at the woods on the way back, a place I knew she hated.