1-How It Began

I never aspired to spend my birthday chained to a wall in the dankest spot of a God-forsaken wasteland. Quill was on my left; slumped on the ground from nasty knock they gave his head. We’d been asking for it, I guess. We certainly never took the easy jobs…Quill was a sucker for the hard cases and I was a sucker for Quill’s ideas. Every girl has a fault.

This all began during the reign of the Nether Queen, Marya Magnific, and times were certainly growing darker. The Queen’s empire lurked south of the ridge cities like the haze creeping around a swamp.  For now the ridge cities carried on hoping to go unnoticed by the teething empire.  Old wives’ tales of woodland demons had become the subject of tavern debates because terrors truly haunted the night and people feared that their imperious southern neighbor, Marya, dabbled in more than just the art of war. Certainly there was some truth in the stories; I knew it better than most.  As the only daughter of the Great Zam Caspian, I had been there when the Nether Queen took the last of the coastal cities, my home.  I didn’t know what to believe about the wilder stories, but I had left the Queen’s dominion, and had no intention of going back.

When Quill found me I was attempting to guide a carriage carrying a spoiled poppet along the troubled road between Tasielin and Magadar.  It was a two week journey and I had hoped to make it through the wilds without a fight—my pay didn’t go up if I dirtied my daggers, and I certainly didn’t want the challenge of keeping my dandy charge from hurting herself by tripping over a body.  I took all sorts of jobs these days, but this was the first time I’d guarded someone so close to my own age.  I would probably never do it again. 

Then again, if I keep taking Quill up on his crazy ideas I will not be alive to do it again.  

Copyright 2012: The Legend of Zare Caspian is an original story by Abigail Cossette for The Raven's Landing.  If you enjoy the story, please share and link back! Please don't copy it. Contact me if you would like to publish a portion of it in any way, shape or form.