A young woman cautiously began her tedious journey down a flight of white marble stairs. Her high-heeled shoes clacked gently underfoot as a violin quartet began to play. Her head turned toward the waltzing tune as the partygoers paired off to start their dance. On the evening of the fall masquerade, she was the star. As the debutante of the ball, tradition bound her to find a suitor by the end of the evening. Her dress of purple silk glimmered with radiant silver embroidering. In the expansive hall, gold chandeliers lit the festivities below. Food was piled high upon the tables, wafting scents of fresh roasts and root vegetables throughout the chamber. Upon the high table, her father and mother sat waiting for her arrival.

As she reached the bottom of the stairs, the revelers parted, clearing a path for her to the head table. There was an indescribable tension in the air, a sort of ghastly nervous hunger of a beast entrapping its prey. The quartet advanced its tune to a dizzying finale as applause broke out among the crowd.

With a final shaking lilt, Aletha stood before the head table and climbed up onto the platform. The applause grew louder as her father rose to give his speech. He was a severe man, a monarch of brutality. With a booming baritone voice, he began to speak, “My people, before you, I present my daughter, Aletha. She is pure of heart, with unwavering innocence. She is my eldest daughter, and she will need a strong man to one day lead our lands. Who among you is man enough? Who among you will arise to claim her as your own?”

Aletha listened with a knot in her stomach as she steeled herself to be auctioned off as a piece of meat. She held back emotions with all that she could muster, trying to conceal her unhappiness. Laughter began to jitter through the crowd as they witnessed her distress. Behind her eyes, a sudden break snapped as if she were with a small bolt of lightning.

“Father!” Aletha exclaimed, “I will not stand here as your prized possession. I am a human being! I am your daughter.”

The king’s eyes opened wide with shock and fury. Glowering at his daughter, he motioned for his guards to come forward. “Aletha, you are nothing. You are nothing more than a whore; you will spend the rest of your miserable days in the dungeons. You will be a caged animal for all to see. You are no daughter of mine.”

“You are not a man. You are not a king. You are a beast. This monster has already taken my innocence!” Aletha began to say before she was gagged with a rope and dragged down to her cell in the dungeon. In her beautiful flowing dress, she found herself chained to the ground with heavy wrought iron shackled around her ankles and wrists.

For forty days, she endured her prison. Her statuesque frame quickly became emaciated, but the light in her eyes refused to surrender. She felt a power within her, ballooning like a fire through the night. In her dreams, she kept seeing a distant cottage high in the mountains and knew it would be a place of refuge. On the fortieth day of her imprisonment, her father trudged down to the catacombs, eager to see Aletha’s suffering. As he approached, he heard clinks of chains moving about rhythmically. It sounded as if she were dancing and singing a song in a forlorn fit of passion.

                              We that are lost have all been found

                              See my chains twist upon the ground

                              In this night, your eyes are fire

                              Gazing into the light, I see my desires

                              Wicked hearts will always wound

                              My powers will seal their cursed tomb.

Aletha performed an ancient dance that had long been banned throughout the kingdom. All around her were rotating sparks of white light hovering as fireflies. He watched his daughter dance in what he believed was a trance of madness. He began to laugh, closing his eyes from the sight. He felt a sudden blast of warmth pulsing over the front of his body. He opened his eyes once more, placing a hand over his eyes to shield them from the blinding fire within Aletha’s cell. She had conjured forth an ancient spirit of light and bowed before it.

               Over the roar of the flames, the wicked king heard his daughter speaking in an ancient language. Before he was able to make out the final sentence, “I humbly accept your gift of Illumination. I swear to bring light to all until my dying breath.”

               The spirit gently kissed Aletha on her forehead as the shackles and chains ensnaring her melted into the ground. The bars keeping her prisoner disintegrated to dust as she walked towards the entrance of her cell. Her father lay upon the floor, collapsed in a state of shock. His guards had all frozen in place, petrified with fear. She waved her arm, and the remaining cells in the catacombs all sprang open, allowing all an opportunity at a new freedom.

               “Turn away from the dark, Father. It will only serve to poison you.” Aletha exclaimed as she began to run with the throngs of other prisoners to freedom.

               Her father came away from his shock and shifted instantly to a murderous rage. “KILL HER!” He shouted as his daughter escaped to the castle grounds. She shivered slightly in the cold but vowed to press on to her haven in the mountains. In her flight from the palace, she felt a dark presence building behind her with every step.  

Snow burned upon the ground, crunching under her bare feet. Blood oozed forth from wounds that lacerated her starving figure. Gasping for air, she sprinted through the open meadow for the safety of her cottage. High within the mountains, the air ran thin as she fled from her assailant. Her dress grew ragged from her captivity; its intricately woven fibers blew around her in the frigid wind. The bruises and cuts that were inflicted by the shackles that restrained her pulsated with every heartbeat.

               The predator chased the young woman across the void of the barren meadow. She panted heavily through the wind as she reached ever closer to her refuge. The malevolent entity hounded her with the momentum of a furious army, stomping upon the frozen ground. She did not dare turn around, focusing every shred of strength to get to the door. Her legs seared with the scorch of her sprint. She could smell the sweet breath of death closing in upon her.

At last, she reached for the wrought iron door handle, wrenching it open with all her might. She whipped her mane of tangled brunette hair around to glance back at her nemesis. Within her mouth, she could taste a sickening metallic substance building behind her lips. Gasping for breath, she began to choke as blood gushed forth from her mouth in a crimson river. It cascaded to the stone floor below with a thick splatter, painting the room red. The eerie sound of malicious laughter suddenly rang in her ears. Raising her hands in panic, she heard the fabric of her dress shredding away by a clawed beast. The evil creature consumed its victim in a torrent of bloody agony.

Aletha awoke with a tremendous jerk, terrified to peer around her cottage. The night poured into her home, bathing the room in darkness. As she regained her bearings, she could still taste the blood that had hemorrhaged forth in her dream. Looking down at her tartan blankets, she saw three claw marks that sank through the covers and into her flesh. A sharp sigh of pain escaped her lips as she felt pain radiating up from her legs. The horrors of the nightmare momentarily dumbfounded Aletha. Shaking her head, she knew the shadows of evil would return to the land.

As she waved her hand towards her gothic arched hearth, a fire erupted at once. It filled the icy room with a beautiful, renewed warmth. She shivered from fear as she stepped out of the comfort of her bed. She set about gathering some of her belongings for her long journey ahead. Coughing slightly, she could still smell the sweet rot of corpses from her dream. Aletha knew there was not a moment to lose as she turned towards her front door. She briskly walked over the threshold into the night. With her purposeful cadence, she hoped to arrive at the capital city by dawn. She trekked through the snow outside in her mission to deliver her warning to King Thomas. Together, the king and her fellow sisters would attempt to shield the kingdom from the rush of looming darkness.