• It was a calm, peaceful Thursday morning, in the centre of the hustle and bustle of people crowding the streets of Bridoc Palace. It seemed like this day would be like any other, not a date to be recorded by poets and sang in melancholy tunes that brought tears to the eyes.
    A young woman cradling a week- old child in her arms certainly thought so, for she wrestled her way to a large, raised platform in the very middle of the palace square and stepped up onto it. The shoppers stopped moving. It was like someone had thrown a time grenade into the land and frozen everyone in their steps. A woman was holding a piece of bread inches from her lips, completely still, while the young child next to her was in mid step, staring up at the woman who stood above the crowd. Only a few feet away, a Palace soldier was holding handcuffs inches from a lawbreaker’s hands, who held completely motionless, despite the advantage of getting free and escaping the soldiers’ clutches.
    The woman on the platform surveyed her audience, and every one of the frozen faces was turned towards her. She was finely dressed, and the baby in her arms was even more lavishly garmented. She raised the small baby up into the air, at least two feet above her.
    “Villagers, members of the Palace Guard, and peasants to dukes alike, I give you your princess!”
    The cheers and clapping coming from the now unfrozen crowd was deafening. It was easy to see what there was to celebrate about; not since 2500 had a princess been born in the royal court. It had always been a son for over 500 years. Now, in the year 3000, the year the first princess in 500 years was born, would become a historical date- but not because of the reasons the villagers had in mind.
    The cheering finally died down and the child was lowered back into the woman’s arms.
    “It is my great honor to inform you of the name of- what was that?” The woman turned in the direction of the long, loud whooshing sound to which she had referred. A bomb, the size of one of the Palace’s towers, was headed for the city. People’s eyes widened and women and men and children alike began to scream and ask the woman onstage what to do. She looked around desperately.
    But there was nothing she could do. The bomb struck in the very heart of the city, blowing the main square apart. The Queen, the mother of the youngling outside, awoke at the ear shattering blast that blew the palace walls in and blazed a burning tragedy into the families that had remained outdoors. The fire that came with the rocket bomb was a blaze of red-orange, a, bloodthirsty beast craving the flesh of humans.
    The mother got up and went outside, despite her hand-maids pleads for her to remain in safety. She wanted to keep her child. She summoned the light she needed to cast a spell from the sun and cast protective spells over herself before barging through the forest of blackened people running left and right, and over red, burned bodies of the Blaze’s fiery victims.
    Then at last she saw her.
    She was in the arms of a man she had never met, but before her anger could form a scream of fury at her lips at the kidnapper, the man flung toward her at inhuman pace and placed the youngling carefully in her outstretched arms. Staring down into the soot-covered face of her daughter, she fled the crumbling square and leapt back into the safety of the Palace through a window.
    There she flung off her red ashen coat and covered the crying princess in it, further protecting her from the flame. Then she placed her in the corner, to wait out the fire.
    The flames of the burned Palace flashed through the mothers’ eyes. She glanced at the bundle whimpering in the corner, and made a quick but vital decision. Beads of sweat from the flames wet her burning cheeks as she swiped up the young child in her arms.
    Cradling it, she barged through the screaming crowd of people outside. Flames whipped around every house in sight and claimed its victims greedily and in a great many numbers. She raced towards the village well, but tripped over something on her way past. She looked down into the face of an innocent, dying villager and tears leaked out of her face.
    But the mother was intent on her task, and finally reached the well. The tears flowed like rain from her bloodshot eyes, but despite her own desperation, she forced herself to place the frightened, innocent young child in the empty bucket. She lowered the bucket enough into the well so that the child was safe from the blazing fire.
    Then, stealing one, final glance at the screaming youngling, she turned her back and ran. She ran as fast and far as she could.
    Her satisfaction that she had rescued and prolonged another generation kept her going. She ran until her feet grew calluses and her arms flopped wearily at her side. She ran until the piercing arrow stabbed her heart, and breathed her final word, the name of the young child, the only survivor of the Blaze—
    “Avelyna.”