Months ago, almost a year now, something happened and I was taken from my home and family. While I was away I sent letters home to my loved ones hoping that they would understand why I was away. My love saved those letters, and we decided that it would be best if we bound and preserved them here in the library at Gryphons Eyrie so that years down the road our children would know that they were not left because they were not loved. That only terrible circumstance kept me away.

The first letter was written about three months after my ordeal began, sent from a little known inn nearly half a world away.

Dearest Antonio,
I know that I have been away a long time, and you have probably given me up for dead by now. I feel that I should tell you I never wanted to leave you and our children. As you know shortly before I vanished I was making a very rare trip to the ports to check the cargo of a ship. I had purchased special saddles for the girls so that they could learn to ride the pegasi at the stables and they were scheduled to arrive that day. You know how much I hate sailing so I was dreading this visit before I even set out.

I set out to the port early in the morning, only to find when I reached there that the ship I was to meet had been refused landing. The capitan had a boat waiting so that I could travel out to the ship to collect the saddles. I reluctantly boarded the boat and spent a very short time retching over the side of the boat while we traveled to the ship. By the time we had arrived I was feeling like death, and if what the capitan said is true, not looking much better. As I was looking over the saddles down in the hold there was a commotion up on the deck. The ship had been boarded. I assumed that it was the port officals coming to look over the cargo so I thought Very little of it, untill the ship started moving.

When the ship started moving I made my way onto the deck only to be seized as soon as I stepped through the hatch. The ship had been captured by pirates. Several of the crew members lay dead on the deck, and the capitan and his officers were bound to the mast. I fought with the men who held me, even managed to wound a few one of which later took infection and died a horrible death. But one catling stands little chance against two dozen men, and soon I was bound alongside the capitain.

For three weeks they kept us bound like that, giving us barely enough water and food to keep us alive, and granting us only a tiny scrap of canvas to shelter under. The Pirate Lord, who called himself Martin the Sword, said that we only recived that much of a concession due to the fact that I was a lady and he did not want my fair skin ruined before we reached the slave markets. Even with that tiny care by the time we had been sailing several weeks my skin was burned and blistered, and where the ropes bound me I had gaping wounds that would not scab. Three men had died where we were bound, and left there to rot. The smell was horrid, I think had I had any extra in my stomach I would have been quite ill.

Despite being bound and half starved we were not treated cruely. None of us were beaten even when we made the rare attempts to escape. We were just captured again and bound more tightly. As the end of the third week approached a storm blew up. Durring the storm a knife rolled by on the deck. I grabbed at it slashing my palms almost to the bone, and cut the ropes that bound us. We made our way to the smaller boats kept for offloading supplies and snuck onboard one, letting it down into the water when the pirates were distracted. I think that storm must have been gods sent because without it we would never have escaped.

David, the medic from the cargo ship bound my wounds as best he could while we were on that little boat. A dozen men and one woman on a boat meant to hold maybe two thirds of that number. The men would take turns swimming alongside to make sure that the boat did not sink. By this time I was fevered and could barely sit let alone swim, and the men were not much better off. It took us another week to reach shore. I had not thought there was that much water in all the world, so I was very relieved to see land even if it was a fly infested salt marsh.

In the marsh we lost another man to fever, and one to a very angry mother Lizzard. Bryce went out to gather wood for the camp fire one night and accidently stepped into the nest, crushing several of the eggs. Mother lizzard took less than a minute to tear him to bits. After that no man went out alone.

Every day we would travel from sunup to twilight before making camp. Camp was a haphazard thing, many nights we slept in trees with no fire and very little food. As we walked the men would catch small game animals and rodents. On the nights we had a fire we would make a stew of them adding whatever local vegitation we could find. If I never eat another cattail root I will be perfectly happy. Its very starchy and makes a filling stew but it is so very bland.

By the time we had reached the edge of the swamp my hands had healed, but they are badly scarred. Even holding a pen this long has been torture. This morning we came across a small inn at the edge of the wetlands. The innkeep is a good man. In some ways he reminds me of you. He would do anything he can to help a stranger. The sailors have been put up in the inn stables, and the capitain, David and I are settled in the one guest room of the inn. We plan to stay a week before we start the journey home we all need time to rest.

I miss you and the children and I want you to know that I love you all. I will come home as soon as I may, and I will write as often as I can.

All My Love,
Kina.