Prologue

*** 3 AM, The Kingdom of Havillah***

The great mountain, a sparkling crystal at its peak.

A green fire shrouded in darkness spreads slowly through the clear crystal.

*Soft inaudible whispering*

Storm clouds rise, engrossing the arena in misty darkness... and bringing to bear;

Thunder...

Loud thunderclaps and harsh strikes of red lightning occasionally illuminate the tiny but fearsome details of this ominous night. The darkness grows, covering everything in sight; spreading out far and wide...

Shrieking and growling rend the air as dark creatures appear...

Vicious shadows, and ferocious beasts; barring their teeth.

They attack, tearing flesh and crushing bones...

The slaughter!

Screaming people... fear, pandemonium. Blood. Pools of blood.

*The whispering grows louder*

It spots me! In the darkness, the giant beast... he pounces!

Creeping over me, he holds me down, choking me...

_____

"Mmh..."

Disturbed, young Riuka stirs in her sleep, her face wrinkling from a furious struggle.

Alone in bed, she twists and turns her frail body, but only her waist and legs move as her head, arms and upper body seem to be held down by some invisible force.

Arms glued to her sides in restraint, chin up, lips parted and gasping for air... This poor girl is being strangled to death!

Unable to move her upper body, she moves her fingers and legs vigorously, clutching the sheets beneath her and kicking the innocent cushions off her bed in a bid to free herself, like they are her assailants.

Her eyes remain tightly shut through all her struggling, indicating that she is still asleep. Stuck in a deadly nightmare.

"...can't breathe..." She murmurs, barely letting out the strangled words as she begins to go pale from a lack of air.

Ten gruelling seconds stroll by, sucking her dry of all her energy and vigour; weakening her fighting limbs until she begins to go unconscious.

Her whole life flashes before her eyes, and when there's no more heart-wrenching detail left to show, the quick biographical film ends.

Then everything goes black.

____

Lying there... motionless.

Her limp body bears no pulse, no heart rate, no struggle.

Just the still quietness of death.

So it appears. But just then, her eyes open!

As her eyelids pop wide open, they reveal a set of blank eyes that glow a fluorescent bright sea green... Let's call this colour, turquoise.

Lit up brightly with a turquoise light, they bear no sign of a pupil, an iris or whatever. Just light. A bright sparking light like electricity, coming from within. Pure energy.

The light charges up her body, forcefully breaking her free and lifting her into the air, high above her bed.

The force of freeing her blows away the pretty bed stands around her bed, destroying them completely.

Then the electrifying light spreads through her head, creating a small diamond-shaped mark on her forehead with a thin line cutting across the middle; running from the top of her forehead to the bridge of her nose, and then moves through her hair, colouring the deep blue strands and lighting them up with a flood of turquoise light.

Streaks of her formerly plain, deep blue hair, slowly wash into luminescent turquoise as they contact her unique energy... until there is no deep blue strand left.

From her head, the glowing electric charge in her eyes spreads out, charting its way down her skin, over her entire body.

Flowing through her bloodstream, it lights up her veins; travelling from her eyes down her neck and to her shoulders to illuminate the birthmark that circles the edge of her right shoulder from front to back.

Connecting dot to dot to dot like a constellation, the travelling light illuminates the more visibly delineated points within the birthmark, drawing thin lines to connect them from point to point; making the birthmark into a more detailed, intricate, circular pattern with 12 sharp points/edges, beautiful curves and little diamonds within.

_____

"Princess!"

It's the little girl's handmaidens. They had heard the loud noise when the bed stands were blown apart and had run down to the princess's bed-chamber to check on her, only to find the door tightly shut, emanating a bright light and strong winds through the cracks like there is a storm within.

"Princess! Are you okay?"

They try to open the door but it is impossible. Worse off, they can hear nothing from the princess.

"She must be in trouble!"

"Do we break down the door to get in and save her?"

"Send word to the Queen first. She'll know what to do."

So they send word to the Queen on the fastest horse available. She always knew what to do in exigent situations. They would have called on the King too, but he was out on a crusade.

"Princess!"

"Princeeesss!!

"..." still nothing.

"Now what? We can't wait for the Queen's arrival. What if our delay causes further harm to the princess?"

"You're right...

We must break the door."

In the meantime, they had to break down that door. It was made from Oakwood so it was incredibly sturdy. They had to get some able-bodied manservants.

....

Meanwhile, the Princess is still unconscious; her charged up body still floating in the air.

From her shoulders, the light travels down her limbs, through her bloodstream, burning a luminescent turquoise path all the way.

Like liquid fire, it charts a new course of birthmarkings, drawing out the same intricate, circular pattern on her left hand and right leg.

On her left hand, the new pattern created spans from the top of the skin on the back of her hand, down the side and into her palm, and on her right foot, it circles from the top of the foot to underneath it.

....

When the light has distributed itself through her entire body, it spreads in a one-meter radius, displaying over and around her, the symbol of her now intricately designed circular markings, pausing two seconds to display the pattern properly, before retracting the pattern completely into her in a flash.

Next, from her comes a sudden outburst of light... pure energy in a 3-metre radius, that brightly lights up the entire room and outer environs for a few seconds, growing more and more intense as it builds momentum like a bomb about to blow.

and then...

*WHOOSH!*

The light disperses in a mini-explosion.

____

The servants are just about to hack down the door with axes when...

*BOOM!*

The mini-explosion hits the walls of the room, breaking through all the windows, destroying everything fragile, and tearing the door off its hinges!

Three man-servants are sent flying along with the door, sustaining minor injuries.

Everyone else ducks and covers, to protect from the flying shards and the powerful blast.

...

Recoiling from the blast, the servants stare in shock at the sheer destruction occassioned by the sudden blast.

An explosion?

What could have happened??

*Gasp!* The princess!!

Thinking the same thoughts, the princess's maidservants make for the now open doorway fast as they can. The princess's safety was priority.

Stepping through the doorway, they are frozen in place by an incredible sight...

The princess is floating high up in the air! And glowing like an ethereal being!

"Aya! I've seen a god!", comments the first and oldest maidservant, awestruck, while the other servants stare on, mouth agape.

With the surge of power dispersed, the lights die down, and the floating princess's yet unconscious body is lowered gently onto the bed.

Her hair gradually reverts to the deep blue it was, save for the few streaks of sea-green beautifying it, and a bit of turquoise lighting that makes her hair look be-jewelled.

The lights in her birth markings also die down, leaving the old and newly improved, intricately designed circular birthmark, along with the brand new markings on her hand and foot.

They shimmer on the princess's plush skin like shiny, transparent little pieces of broken glass, more visible under brighter light, and so also does the small diamond-shaped mark on her forehead.

As the lights in her eyes die out, her eyes go back to being shut.

*Poof!*

The princess lands on her soft bed, her unconscious body back to being limp.

"Princess!", the servants rush forward, suddenly freed from their frozen positions by their agitation.

They approach the bed, too scared to touch her, not knowing what exactly to do, as they just saw their princess... in a godly state!

And there surely was an explosion just now... What exactly was going on?

Weird things had happened with the princess before, but this... floating in the air was by far the weirdest, and most impossible.

...and an explosion?

Explosives were rare and incredibly valuable... the foremost discovery of the times. Plus, they were only made in Havillah.

Explosives could not have been stored in the princess's room. The princess had no interest whatsoever in them.

The servants are professional. They dutifully look around the room for any possible cause of the explosion, just in case an enemy or a spy planted explosives to take out the princess.

The room looked like a storm had come through... the bedposts and the door had been thrown down, the windows and lamps broken to pieces, and even the indestructible energy crystals that lit up the room flickered occasionally, having been affected by the princess's electric charge.

But, apart from the fact that the room was now a total trainwreck, there were no signs of an explosion. It didn't smell of ammunition, neither was there any smoke or any burnt item.

If not explosives, what caused the explosion? It was a mystery.

Surely the princess could not have been the source of the explosion, could she?

If that was the case, then she was no doubt an ethereal being in human form.

But right now, she was unconscious.

They hoped and prayed that she was alive and healthy.

Looking at her now, she looked peaceful and so beautiful...

Harmless, fragile and innocent.

"What happened to her hair?", whispers the first servant, noticing the little lights and streaks left in the princess's deep blue wavy hair.

"...."

"...and are those?", a second servant had noticed something else.

"New markings??!", the two servants chorus in hushed shock.

_____