8 years ago

Ambridge enjoyed the feel of the wind through her hair as she let her horse run heedlessly through the hills above her father’s estate. Far behind her, the bodyguard that her father had assigned the duty of guarding her during her “leisurely ride” was racing to keep pace.

Ambridge was more than a hundred yards ahead of the man when she reigned in at the crest of the hill, letting the horse rest and giving the bodyguard time to catch up from her wild run.

Her father wasn’t a Lord among the High Kin, but he was a successful flower merchant; specializing in white, Ambridge roses. From the day she was born he had said she was as wild as a rose; and so she was named after the flowers he had built his fortune on.

Enjoying the exhilaration of the moment, Ambridge looked out over the crisp, blue sea. She didn’t notice the lowered sails of the Sea Kin’s ship along the shoreline until her bodyguard was within range and his shouts could be heard. As she was attempting to make out the words he was shouting, a sharp pain jabbed into her arm as her horse screamed beneath her and reared back, throwing her from the saddle. Pain shot through her side as she crashed into the ground. It was only then that she noticed the whistling of the arrows falling around her and found that one of them was the reason for the pain in her arm.

Tears leaked from her eyes as she shifted on the ground to use her now dead horse as cover, trying to take in what was happening around her. Her bodyguard had arrived, standing over her and swinging about him with his blade trying to keep the large Sea Kin raiders at bay. She watched as one of the raiders grabbed his sword arm and another planted a knee into his gut. He practically fell atop her, but a third raider caught him; preventing her from being crushed. The first raider knocked him unconscious with his hammer, and the three raiders dragged him away together. Following the trio and their captive, another raider scooped up the crying girl and effortlessly slung her over his shoulder.

The Sea Kin removed the arrow from her arm and bandaged her wound before they threw her in a cage below decks. For several weeks they only came down to bring her gruel twice a day and empty her latrine bucket. The wound in her arm grew red and irritated and grew more painful with each passing day. Several weeks later, when Ambridge had lost track of how many days had passed, a new Sea Kin in course leather robes and a thick fur cloak came down, grumbling the entire time, and took her arm roughly in a strong, painful grip. Ambridge yelped from the pain, and the mage glanced from her arm to her face; after seeing the pain he was causing, his grip softened slowly. A cold chill spread from the mage’s grip through her arm, numbing it to the pain. As she watched, a strange, white fluid oozed out of the wound and the flesh knitted itself back together. After the mage finished, her skin was still red and irritated, and the pain returned as warmth was restored slowly to her arm.

“I’m not a skilled healer,” the mage grumbled, “It will take time to fully heal, and it will continue to hurt for several days – but you will not lose the limb now as the slavers suggested you might.”

“Thank you,” Ambridge replied softly.

The day her arm finally stopped hurting was the day the Sea Kin docked into port and her fears were confirmed – Ambridge was being sold as a slave in the markets of Altavar. Two of her slavers dragged her to the central yard and after a hurried conversation about her age, which she did not understand, her dress was ripped off at the shoulders and thighs to display her arms and legs and she was dragged onto a stage before a crowd that considered her as they bid on her bodyguard. Ambridge was grateful to keep what small amount of clothing was allowed her as many of the women who were only a few years older than her were stripped completely and gawked at as though they were cattle.

Ambridge was too young to understand the price of slaves in a foreign land, but she understood that her fathers’ flowers sold for five pellets each and the final bidder bought her from the Sea Kin for only five beads. She never had been able to grasp currency as well as her father and struggled to remember the conversion from copper pellets to silver beads… was it ten? A hundred?

Her master was a kind, old Lord from an estate on the outskirts of the city. Though when she plead for her freedom and told the story of her capture, he did not believe her; according to her paperwork, she had been sold to the Sea Kin to pay a debt that her father owed.

“It’s sad…” the Lord commented, “That any father would sell his own daughter over a few measly beads. I could never send you back to such a man.”

She was put to work in the kitchens, and learned quickly from the other slaves that their master was kind indeed. Thinking always of their release, the Lord insisted on each of his slaves learning to read and write and learning a trade skill they could employ upon payment of their slave debt. Though the other slaves all whispered of Ambridge’s father and his callous sale of his own daughter for the measly price of her slave debt (which she also learned was remarkably low), she remained fast to her conviction – that story was a lie told by the slavers, nothing more.

For eight years, Ambridge worked in the kitchens of the Lord, learning the skills of a chef and even running the kitchen for a time when the head chef fell ill. Six of those years were spent as his slave, and two as a full member of his staff.

Overall, they were happy years. Ambridge made friends among the slaves and servants, and after the shock of her new life, they began to feel like family.

She thought always of her father and returning to his estate and spent those two years out of slavery saving for the trip back to her home, but she barely made enough money to pay for her own needs. The Lord was a generous man, and insisted that each of his staff learn independence by managing their own finances. This resulted in Ambridge having to purchase her own clothing and shoes and spending almost as much as she made every month.

Ambridge also suspected that the Lord was keeping her pay lower than the other servants due to her insistence of returning to her father, but she was at his mercy and always had enough to live on so she never researched farther into the issue.

Then, on a night her Lord was lying sick on his deathbed, her life fell apart.

The manor was in chaos that night, with most of the servants helping the healers and Ambridge was left to run the kitchen. The back door to the manor burst open, and two guards came in with the Lord’s son, Rolft.

“We found him in a tavern,” one of the guards announced, “We brought him home as quickly as we could manage.”

Ambridge shook her head as the guards left Rolft in the kitchen, though the Lordling stayed in a sitting position, rather than settling down to lie on the bench as he had in the past.

“If he dies tonight,” Rolft said, “I’ll have to take over the estate… I’m not some noble Lord like my father… I don’t have an heir. I don’t even have any prospects for a wife…”

Ignoring the Lordling, Ambridge stepped around the counter and gave instruction to one of the younger chefs.

“You’re young…” Rolft concluded, “You could bear me an heir… You’re old enough to have your monthly cycle, and your beauty is appealing… Come with me…”

Rising from his place, Rolft began to accost Ambridge; pushing her back toward his bench and pulling at her dress. Fighting desperately, Ambridge soon found that Rolft was too strong and determined; and the other kitchen slaves and servants had withdrawn so as not to draw the ire of their new master.

Ambridge kicked and screamed, but no help was forthcoming. Finally she grabbed the wood axe from beside the kitchen door and swung the haft to push Rolft back. That was the moment she felt her Seal awaken.

Her Seal was a well-kept secret, as were most nobles’ Seals. Her father had planned to have her Seal interpreted by a Reader the next time one passed the manor, but she had been kidnapped before any readers had come through the area. As a slave, having her Seal interpreted by a Reader was an unnecessary frivolity, and one that her Lord had insisted she pay for herself; and she couldn’t afford such a costly service.

She discovered on that fateful night, that she bore a Warrior’s Seal. The axe flared to life in her hands, whistling with a speed that startled both Ambridge and Rolft. Acting on instinct, Ambridge finished the swing with the haft of the weapon and let the weight of the head carry it around through the rest of its arch. She felt the axe land solidly, and the thud of the Rolft’s body hitting the ground struck her as hard as a physical blow.

Guards finally arrived, responding too late to her shouts and cries for help. Though instead of finding a lone female accosted by the drunken son of the dying Lord, they found a servant that had slain the heir to the estate only hours before his father’s death.

Ambridge was charged with murder.