Chapter One

January 2005

It was a cold January night. The winter wind was blowing throughout the valley village of Ravenna. The nine-year-old Rowan was lying in her bed in her family’s cottage. The window by her bed was closed tight, but she could still feel the freezing wind creeping in and gnawing at her beneath her blankets. This hardly bothered her, however, as she had lived through many winters just like this one in her young life. In fact, Rowan often found the cold to be rather soothing, as it helped her to drift off to sleep, but she was having trouble closing her eyes tonight.

Rowan sat up in her bed, keeping her blanket wrapped around her, and stared blankly around her room. It was dark; the only source of light came from a candle flickering somewhere outside her room. It was quiet in the cottage, as it was every night. Being the youngest of the family, she had been put to bed first. Her older brother, she imagined, was probably sitting in their family room carving away at the spear that he was making for her from the old tree standing defiantly at the edge of the valley.

It was such a quiet atmosphere. Rowan listened to the sound of the wind racing and howling against her closed window. It sounded shrill as it continued to growl outside. However, there was something peculiar about it, as if there was another distant sound blending in with the wind. Rowan listened intently with a curious and anxious look on her face. It almost sounded as though there was some sort of shouting in the distance.

Rowan did not know what to think of all the noise she was hearing. Suddenly, a figure made their way quickly into her dark room. Jumping from her brief trance, Rowan realized that her mother had hurried into her bedroom. In her hand, she was holding a small, rusty lantern and she appeared to be rather anxious as she scanned around the room. She locked eyes with her young daughter as she hurried over and roused her out of her bed.

“Rowan!” her mother breathed frantically as she grabbed a firm hold of her arm. “Come on, hurry!”

“What’s going on?” Rowan asked, following her mother’s direction. She received no answer. Instead her mother led her quickly out of the bedroom and down the staircase of their cottage. The noises in the distance were growing louder and more clear, and Rowan knew for sure that it was the sound of many people shouting at once. She began breathing rapidly as the anxious fear of the unknown was beginning to encase her.

Upon heading down the stairs, Rowan saw that the front door was open and the freezing air was pouring inside. Looking around, Rowan saw no sign of Delmar or their father. She wrapped her arms around herself to try to keep warm as the icy wind flowed around her, and her mother quickly retrieved a small, thick coat from a rack hanging on the wall to put on her daughter.

Just then, Rowan saw her older brother hurry through the house and toward the open door. To her astonishment, she could see him grasping a hatchet that was used for wood chopping as he leaned out the doorway.

“Father!” Delmar called out. Rowan remained speechless and nervous as her mother placed an arm around her in an attempt to comfort her. However, looking up into her eyes, the young Rowan could see that something was very wrong.

“What is it?” Rowan muttered up to her mother.

Delmar suddenly turned his attention to his sister. He seemed to be just as uninformed as she was, but Rowan could also see that he was still very worried himself. It was at this moment that their father, the Ravennites’ Chief, rushed back into the cottage through the open door. He was a great man, standing over six feet tall, with a very stern face and a short, dark beard. He was carrying with him a couple of stone short swords. He took a brief look around the room and headed over to his wife and youngest child.

“Listen to me,” he began with a powerful voice of authority. “Take Rowan with you. Keep her safe. You gather as many of the people as you can and head for the mines, but you keep her safe at all costs! Stay there until we return, understand?”

The mines. Rowan knew exactly what her father was talking about. The old clay mines that ran like veins beneath the vast mountains they called home. Her people made use of the great clay deposits surrounding the valley for much of their resources, but the remainder of the mines were mostly stripped away and retired. Rowan shuddered, however, as she remembered learning about an old Ravennite protocol kept by the Chief, stating that her people would seek temporary refuge within the mines in the unlikely event of an emergency situation in the valley, such as an attack. Rowan put the pieces together, and if she heard her father right, Ravenna must have been under attack, and there was only person she could think of who might be behind it.

Her father turned and handed one of his stone swords to Delmar, who gripped it anxiously. Rowan swallowed as her mother began ushering her toward the back of the cottage. “Wait!” Delmar called back at them. He hurried into the family room and fetched the spear he had been craftin. He stepped forward and handed it to Rowan. “Take this with you. Keep it safe for me.” As Rowan took the spear from her brother, she looked up at him with wide, fearful eyes, as if she was afraid he was inferring that they might not be coming back to the valley.

There was a brief silence between them as their father called out from the doorway. “Go! Now!”

Delmar gave them both a brief embrace. “Be careful,” his mother whispered to him shakily. Delmar nodded his head and ran off to join the Chief. Rowan could only watch him go for a second before her mother pulled her away. Young as she may have been, Rowan could clearly sense the fear that was engulfing her entire family, and a very unwelcome thought was telling her that she might never see them again.