Fifteen years ago ...

The battle raged on. Phalion, the grey city of the north, stood amid a ring of fire that pressed ever inward, taking the walls, the streets. The army of the usurper, Velasca, streamed between the burning houses, looting and pillaging, pressing ever onward until the great keep was at last the only remaining obstacle to overcome in their hateful oppression of the true order.

In the highest tower, protected by walls of thick stone and guards five deep upon the winding stairwell, a different battle was being waged. Blood-stained sheets rumpled about the slender hips of the last princess of the blood, the only remaining rival to the usurper's claim on the throne of Arctra. Her husband, the noble Lord Farus, paced back and forth before the heavy door, listening with only scant attention to the sounds of fighting in the passageway beyond, his full care and fear focused upon the unrelenting struggle of his wife as she fulfilled her greatest desire ....to bear her babes, the grand-children of the dead Queen Talaera, in the safety of her husband's stronghold, away from the pursuing hate of her childhood companion.

Three others there were in that tower room - Dalan, the captain of his guard and his oldest friend; Mila, the princess' lady-in-waiting; and Kari, the ancient midwife, in whom their best hope for the future lay. These three, and only they, could be trusted with the truth of what had to be done, to ensure the survival of Talaera's line, and thus, the survival of Arctra itself.

On the bed, golden-haired Arian writhed and screamed, caught up in the pain of birthing twins too soon for her fragile body to cope. Mila sat at her head, wiping the sweat from her regal face with cool cloths, urging her on even as her strength began to fail. Between Arian's feet, muttering signs and sigils and the practises of magic so feared by the common people, old Kari knelt on the bed, her gnarled hands guiding the firstborn grandchild of the murdered queen into the light of the flickering lamps.

As screams erupted from the stairway beyond the door, the wizened old midwife laid the tiny baby girl upon the bed, ignoring her wailing cries as she spoke directly to the sobbing princess.

"A girl child, vipsana," she told the new mother, hands stroking over the still swollen belly before her. "Golden, like her mother."

"No ..." Marus looked up as his wife sobbed, watching as she shook her head in despair. "She can't be ....they'll kill her ..."

Mila's eyes met those of her lady's husband, fear written clear in her gaze. "We won't be able to hide a girl who looks so much like Arian for long," she said more clearly. "Not without help."

"Old Kari can hide her," the midwife said in her whisper of a voice, one hand reaching to begin drawing the secondborn from Arian's womb.

"No!" Farus snarled, fury taking him as he strode across the chamber to his wife's bedside, glaring at the two women who hovered over her. "I never agreed to that. Blood magic will not save us!"

"Not you," Kari agreed, supremely unconcerned by the angry warrior standing over her. "But the vipsana ....she can be saved."

"Farus ..."

The lord of Phalion looked down at his wife, the golden-haired Princess Arian, and knew with that one glance that his objections were nothing. Her beautiful eyes, a blue as pale as the sky on a spring day, gazed longingly into his, her face red with the tearful effort of bearing their children safely.

"She ....she has to live," the young princess whispered, her voice hoarse from hours of laboring. "Arctra will ....will fall if she ....Velasca will kill her ..."

"I can't," he whispered, dropping to his knees beside the bed, grasping her outstretched hand between his own. "I can't stand here and let the witch kill my son!"

"No witch," Kari objected, a hint of disapproval in her voice now as she looked on impassively. "No blood. Bone magic, earth magic ....spell to keep the little vipsana safe until her time."

"Please, Farus," Arian whispered, her soft voice so weak from their long struggle pleading with him. "One of us has to get through this ..."

But Arian, dear beloved Arian, princess of the blood and line of Arlan the Wise, was dead. Farus tore away from Dalan's grasp to fall onto the bed, wrenching the pale, bloodied form of his wife from the arms of her lady, even as the heavy doors slammed open. Men poured into the chamber, ready for battle, fevered with bloodlust ....yet the scene that awaited them was horrifying in itself.

Upon the bed, the last princess of the blood lay dead, wrapped in the arms of her noble husband, whose keening cries of pain and loss were so low as to be felt rather than heard. Beside them, the dead mother and grieving father, lay the still forms of their newborn children. To the eyes of those who faltered and stared, the girl child was blue, clearly stillborn from her mother's womb. The male child sighed in his sleep, limbs flailing in uncontrolled expression of some unknown emotion.

And upon this bloodied scene came the usurper Queen herself. Armored in the way of their people, untouched by the blood and scars and soot of battle, Velasca stepped into the chamber. Her eyes went first to the body of her foster mother's daughter, a cruel smirk twisting her lips.

"Well," she said in the sudden silence, "at least I will not have to shed the blood of the last of Talaera's daughters. You, old woman -" Her cruel eyes snapped to Kari, stilling the ancient midwife's hands as she reached for the living child of Arian and Farus. "Touch them and die."

The witch-woman shrank back, cowering at the feet of the usurper Queen as Velasca stepped around the bed. She looked down at the two tiny bodies, the living male, the dead female, and suspicion crowded her gaze.

"Gyre!"

At her sharp call, a robed figure stepped from the mass of bodies that crowded the doorway. This, Farus could see, was the wizard who had deployed magic against them, the reason the keep of Phalion had fallen. Gyre Nightblade, the chief of Velasca's renegade wizards, whose dark expression and powerful ambition had urged her into taking this regicidal step in the first place.

He came to the bedside without needing to be told, stretching his hands over the twin babes, touching each with his fingertips. Farus dared not look away, dared not seek old Kari's gaze for reassurance. He could only watch, and wait for the inevitable denouncement of what they had done, seeing in his future only death for himself and his hidden daughter.

Velasca seethed beside her pet wizard, glaring down at the innocents beneath his hands. "Well?" she demanded, the urgency in her voice declaring of her need to know what had been done.

Gyre's hands retreated, a triumphant smile casting his pallid face into horrific shadow. "It is as you see, my queen," he told Velasca with overweaning confidence. "The gods have smiled upon your reign. The girl died at the instant of her birth and took her mother's soul with her."

Velasca's smirk seemed to soften then, her gloved hand lowering to touch the face of the living babe on the bed.

"Then I need not have this one killed," she said, and for a moment the watchers almost saw mercy on the face of the woman who had seized the throne for herself. "He will wed my daughter, when they are both of age. You, girl -" Her eyes this time snapped to Mila where she knelt beside the bed. "Take the boy and care for him. Phalion will be his seat, and he will be the lord of this city until such time as he takes his place as consort to the new princess. Teach him the new order."

The relief that colored Farus' emotion was too full, too strong to hide. He ducked his head, pressing his face against the cooling skin of his beloved wife, knowing now that even should he die, his daughter would live in the guise of her brother, to take the throne in the years to come and restore peace and order to Arctra.

"And as for you, Farus ..."

He lifted his head, the hatred in his eyes sharp and heart-felt as he looked into the eyes of the woman who had hounded them all to this place and time. Velasca held his fury in her sights for a long moment.

"So disloyal to the new order, dear brother in law," she breathed, and he saw, finally, the covetousness that had led her to chase Arian through the country, willing her to die in childbirth. "If you had but chosen to wed me, you might be king now."

He snarled in fury, laying down the body of his beloved wife to rise to his feet, towering over the woman who had so destroyed all their lives.

"You b*tch, Velasca," Farus hissed between his clenched teeth. "I am a lord of the noble houses; you are nothing but a street brat taken into the Queen's household in pity and amusement. You are, were, and will always be, beneath my notice."

What might have been a softening in Velasca's expression suddenly sharpened to a darkness that would have chilled even the boldest of men. She stepped back from him, turning to give her orders.

"Take the new lord of Phalion to safer quarters below," she barked, watching in dark approval as Mila gathered the baby boy into her arms, tears streaming down her face, and hurried from the tower room, guided by old Kari and loyal Dalan. "Burn this tower and leave it a ruin - a funeral pyre for the last princess of Arlan's blood."

"And Lord Farus, my queen?"

Velasca paused in the doorway, looking back at the man who could have been her husband, who might well have prevented all of this had he only chosen her over the pale beauty who lay dead at his side. Her eyes blazed, but her voice ....her voice was as cold and deathly as an unopened tomb.

"Let him burn."