Prologue
History- an untold tale of the forest.
The book that started everything for me. I was nine and had snuck into my father’s library in search of something to read. As I walked across the ancient oak floors, I listened to them creak, hoping that no-one would hear and come to inspect the noise.
My father barely went in here, if at all, so I was safe.
For now.
Every so often, as I went deeper into the room full of literature, a book would catch my eye from its place on the dust covered shelf and I would pause to take the novel down. All the books I picked out were either in an unknown language that I couldn’t decipher, had too many confusing words or didn’t seem interesting enough to me. Being an impatient child, I hadn’t spent more than a few seconds looking over them before promptly putting them back on the shelf where I had found them.
After what seemed like hours as I passed an old worn desk, something shiny caught my eye. Naturally, I went closer to take a better look. As I shifted the papers that littered the worktop, something became very apparent to me. It wasn’t that my father didn’t come here anymore, he hadn’t been here at all. If he had, he hasn’t left any indication that he had.
How did I know this? I know you want to know. The papers that I had shifted were dated back to when my grandfather was alive. All of them were in his messy scrawl that I could barely read.
Finally, when I had moved all the papers out of my way, I could see what they had been concealing. On the desktop,I found a thick leather bound book with the large, golden, peeling letters that had caught my eye. Next to it were two things that I hadn’t originally seen. A golden, gem encrusted letter opener and a silver arrowhead with a few splinters from the shaft that was no longer attached. I did find it strange that they weren’t more securely guarded but with me being nine, I didn’t care about the weapons much. I was much more interested in the book.
History- an untold tale of the forest.
I had found what my heart desired. I had never heard about the outside world before so the title intrigued me. Taking the book under my arm, I managed to shift the papers that I had disturbed back to where they were before, covering the treasures that I would one day claim as my own. I didn’t give the treasures another thought as I ran out of the library, nor did I tell my father as that would be telling him I had been in his library. I didn’t want to get into trouble for being in a forbidden part of the castle that I had called home as well as being there without his permission.