Prologue To Krysteala

She was almost dead. Some of the younger children fought with emotions of pity for her, but such thoughts were dangerous, and they quickly withdrew before they brought the Master's wrath down to them. How the Golden had angered the Master! She had almost escaped after being tortured for cycles, only to be captured, and made to pay for her disobedience. Only one thing had stopped him from putting her to death...the child.


She looked up from sunken eyes as a shadow fell upon her. "Keldinze." She said the name through clenched teeth, mind and soul wishing nothing more than to murder him in his tracks.

"Your child is well, Azairi. I thought you would wish to know that. It was...foolish of you to try to kill it while birthing." He shook his head sadly. "So very foolish."

"Ah, I will try again until her death, Keldinze! I would wish her dead than to see her raised here," her lip curled in contempt, "Among all of you."

"But she will not die. She will grow strong in body, and of course there will be cycles to teach her until she makes her first kill..."

"No! She will not kill. It has already been foretold of her gifts. The temple but awaited her birth to take her into the folds of the White."

Keldinze thought this very funny indeed. "Poor Azairi. Whites have been made to kill before. And long after they had been trained in the temple, I might add. Have no fear, my dear Golden. When the time comes, she will make her kill. I will see to that!"

"And I say that she will not. Beware, for my powers are not so small. Take care that this precious royal blood you so wish for not lead to your downfall! For you must always remember, Master of Dorses, that she is MY child."

Keldinze threw back his head and laughed, his meaty shoulders shaking. "That she is of your loins I will never forget. She will be raised to rule at mt side, and one day, she will be Master."

"No!" An anguished cry escaped Azairi's lips before she grabbed what had once been golden hair, pulling it out with swollen, broken fingers, until, a sudden calm came to her face. "You're to kill me now? Of course you are," she quickly answered herself. "I'm no longer of any use to you." She paused, considering. "I have a death wish, Keldinze. Even you cannot withhold that from me. I demand the right to name my babe. That is my death wish."

Several moments passed in a chilling silence. At last, he reluctantly called for the child, his eyes never leaving her face. "You will not touch her!"


She met his hard, souless eyes boldly. "No. I will not lay hands upon her."

They both looked up as a servant woman brought in the child to within a few feet of Azairi. Weak, and in increasing pain from the internal injuires Keldinze had ordered done, she raised herself slightly and held a battered hand over her child's head. "My sweet babe," she breathed softly, "Always will I be with you." She allowed herself one last look at the precious soul that made up her daughter. "Agnetha," she whispered sadly.

"Loud enough for all to hear least you try some foolish magic," Keldinze bellowed.

Again she remembered where she was and who watched her movements. "I name her Agnetha," she said in a voice tinted with power and loud enough to leave no room for doubt.

Azairi's hand raised higher, and she gathered what little energy she had been able to hoard since the child's birth. A soft glow began to grow around her palm, gently moving to the tender body and encircling her. The newborn Agnetha cried out in alarm as the breath was pulled from her tiny lungs.

"She can't be that strong yet," Keldinze shouted. "Somebody stop her," he ordered as he tried to move and could not.

One of the guards reached her first, and pulled her from the pallet, twisting hard. Several bones in her arm popping loudly as they were brutally broken. But still the child cried.

"She will not kill, Keldinze. If I must take her soul weight into me, I do so. You murdered Benadaar, because of you I must kill Agnetha, and soon you will take me also. But alive or dead, my child will not kill. And you are damned, Master Slut! With my last breath of life, I damn you. Never will you be safe from me."

"You think not?" he demanded, pulling back his own will. A huge fist suddenly slammed into her stomach, doubling her over, and bringing blood to the corners of her mouth. But her hand held firm, and still the child cried, this time in the last gasps of the dying.

Azairi began to laugh then with a wild, hysterical note so filled with hate and revenge, that all were sure that she would indeed haunt both they and Keldinze to the end of all times.

His hand slashed out side-ways, and although she saw it, Azairi did not so much as flinch as it parted the bones in her neck, and took the life from her abused body. He let the carcuss hang for a moment, before motioning it away.

The babe slowly stopped crying and started to look around it in wonder. What a prize he had gained! And she was his. To do with as he would, and yes, to train as he molded her to be. "Agnetha." he smiled in satisfaction as the morning suns beat down on her Golden hair. "What fun I will have with you. For you will make your kills. Imagine that. A Golden blood to kill." His evil laugh of triumph echoed through the room until, finally becoming bored, he motioned her away, already thinking of his next victims.