Copyright 2015 Amelia Mapstone
All Rights Reserved
Seven Years
The town of Amarelle was beyond barren. It had been stripped of its power, dignity and fortune all in one night, and had shed its life as well, every last soul licked up in a flame storm.
The village’s once beautiful establishments were in shambles. Ash painted the ground as far as the eye could see, even as far as the edge of the forest, where a pleasant little cottage sat. The cottage itself was in perfect condition. How it had managed to go unscathed through a blustering firestorm of at least a dozen young dragons, no one would ever know.
No one, that is, except for a young boy named Max, who made his way out of the wrecked city alive and quite alone.
The dark-haired, stark-eyed boy was a mess, with second degree burns on his arms and forehead and a thin cut on his bottom lip. Of course, that was nothing compared to what his family had endured. By then they were no more than dust collecting among blades of grass.
Frantic from the previous night’s attack and desperate for some kind of help, the boy knocked hard on the old wooden door of the cottage. He stood there for a moment on the colorful cobblestones, but his knees were growing weak and his vision was blurred with tears and ash. His body felt as though it was being dragged down by weights.
“Help!” he called out in a fragile voice that matched his fragile state. “Is anyone there?”
In reply the door swung open, and he was met with a figure only a bit taller than he. It was a young woman dressed in the colors of the forest, her eyes the deep green of the spring foliage. Her skin was whiter than any white the little boy had ever seen, and her hair was the pale color of sea foam.
The words “who are you?” hadn’t even left her lips before the boy collapsed into her arms, unconscious.