Quoted By:
> Why she became a student of magic…power for revenge
> Why she became a student of magic…power to rule
Melody is walking in a rainbow. A current of colors, a flow of lights. Soap bubbles are rushing by, carried on the light. She reaches out, touches one, blinks as it pops, little droplets plinking onto her hand. Like the smell locked in an old chest a memory comes, washes over her, shoving her back in time.
The sun hovered indecisively just above the horizon. She’s laughing, running. Maybe five more minutes before her mother calls her in? There’s a boy, her age with strawberry blond hair and a smile to rival the sun, just a little faster this time and she could catch him. She told herself it was fate to marry that boy.
The horns blow, a single long low note and a wave of confusion passes over the village, only broken by the youngest, most oblivious children still giggling. Another horn, and another.
“They’re coming!” Went up the shout and the world went into panic. The dirt road seemed suddenly filled with a thousand people, jostling and running. The horns were everywhere. Who were they? Why was her mother throwing clothes and precious things in a bag. Her father simply picked her over his shoulder, the bag with his other hand.
“No more.” He declared.
No more. The boy with the bright smile was no more. The village with the dirt road was no more. She would never find out who ‘they’ were, just one of the countries, barbarians, or natural disasters that gnawed sections off the empire every few years.
