0: Prelude

6 January, Year 878 of the Julian Calendar,

Lunden (London), Westseaxna rīċe (Kingdom of the West Saxons)

Ana Immergarten barricaded the iron door with a long wooden log before leaning against it and sighing, "What a perfect eighteenth birthday this is turning out to be." Before she could continue pitying herself, a faint clinking noise tapped against the hinges of the door behind her. The Northmen had found her. Ana shivered with fear as she imagined burly-inked men with axes breaking in to do as they wished with her.

Steeling her nerves, Ana pushed herself away from the door to the only light source in the cellar, a small candle that occupied itself with illuminating a mess of parchments upon a desk. "What did you want me to see before your death?" She muttered to herself while looking carefully yet hurriedly through the stacks of parchment.

Finally, Ana spotted an old and brown-looking parchment filled with writing in a language unlike the rest shown across the parchment on the desk. Unlike the others written in English, it was written in Latin, a language not widely spoken in Britannia but spoken in the Carolingian Empire, where Ana hails from.

As she read, the words became branded into her mind:

Last of her family,

A noble, born as a child of Venus,

Will betray for good and help for bad,

Forever letting a legacy be forgotten.

Ana finished reading and slowly turned her head to the door behind her. The clanking had stopped. A cold sweat enveloped her brow as her gaze did not move from the door.