Someone Else's Kingdom, BOOK II - Scene LIII

The guards gripped the girl by her arms and dragged her from the room. Just five minutes earlier she'd been sat combing her hair before a broken looking glass that had a huge crack down the middle. Half watching the damp and dredged streets from her window, between bouts of self-admiration. Now the door to her little home was barged open, and she was being told she had to leave. To where and why for she knew not.

The lower floor of the house was still soggy from the foot of water that had rushed down the cobbled lane, and the dank smell of sea-ruin added to the overpowering duress. Her mother screamed at the guards, as her little brother punched and grabbed at the back of one frantically, but to little avail.

"It's on orders of Queen Aglaia ..every girl in the city between the age of 12 and 15 is to be taken."

The girl kicked, screeched and bit as the guards forced her out of the door. They then bound her hands and feet, and ushered her into the waiting carriage. As she was pushed inside she found another girl seated, who had accepted her fate more passively. She vaguely recognised the girl from a few roads down. She then turned and looked back - she could see one of the guards holding her mother at the door, stopping her from leaving and coming to the rescue. She then briefly thought of her father, away in the bloodied fields, fighting Queen Aglaia's war. Too far away to save her. The horses quickly clopped off, and the wheels of the carriage began moving. On their journey towards the palace tower.