Prologue

"Get it back!" The king grew frustrated, shouting at the prisoner. The king had forgotten his poise; he had forgotten the rest of the kingdom that would bend at his every whim. His brow began to sweat and a purplish, blue vein bulged from his neck, signifying a dangerous spike in the temperature of the room. His angry and violent magic swirled around the prisoner, choking off his supply of oxygen.

"No," the boy, just seventeen, replied simply. His brow, too, was sweaty, his face beaten beyond recognition and his arms tied tightly behind his back, while one shoulder hung awkwardly lower than the other. The smallest smile played at the corner of his lips, infuriating the king beyond what his stubborn disobedience could have ever hoped to accomplish.

"This is not a game!" The king yelled into the face of the defiant prisoner.

The boy was exhausted, both physically and mentally. He had been tortured, beaten and abused repeatedly, but always just to the brink of death, never beyond. He longed for death, that sweet relief, the peaceful afterlife, the great beyond that would end his suffering and finally offer silent rest.

He stayed silent now, even as his king yelled at him, even as the guards beat him. He did not speak. He did not cry out. His bloodied body and broken bones the only friends he had left, the only reminders of the war that was being waged beyond this cell, this four-walled prison of insanity. And of why he would never give up.

"Enough," the king ordered quietly, and the guard took a step back, dropping the strong arm that was about to strike against the boy's face again. "This is dangerous, this game you play," the king stood towering over the slumping child, hundreds of years his inferior. The boy did not look at him. The boy could not look at him, his tired, broken head hung down to his chest, lolling with the effort to keep from slipping into unconsciousness.

"But worth it," the boy spat in a hoarse and pained whisper.

"Is it?" The king couldn't help but laugh, the child reminded him of another he had once tortured, a prisoner arrogant, confident, sure of his cause. But that old man had perished at his own hands and this child would follow the same fate. "Will it be worth it when we find her? When we take the magic from her instead?"

The boy grunted his contempt at the reference to the girl. He struggled to hold his head higher, to sit up straighter. How dare this evil tyrant refer to her.

"Ah, now I have your attention." The king's lips turned upwards in the snarl of an evil man. His eyes darkened and narrowed to ominous slits of suspicion. He had found the right words, the right incentive. "She is being hunted as we speak; it will not be long before we find her. Get the magic back from her and we will leave her alone. She can live out her life; she can be free from us. You have my promise. My word as king, I will pursue her no longer. Just get it back."

The sound that pierced the damp stone walls frightened even the king. The deep, authentic laughter mocked the king and his guards standing around. The small prison cell reverberated in the sound of a child not fooled by empty threats or wasted efforts.

And then suddenly, the laughter stopped, the boys head raised and he stared into the eyes of his king with the passion of a man living out eternity in the splendor of a victory already won. "You are the ones being hunted!" He screamed, shouting through the stone walls of his prison cell, reaching beyond the depths of the pit they had thrown him into, far into the recesses of the castle and reverberating the truth in every ear that could hear. "She will be the one to find you, not the other way around. Your reign is over, the countdown clock has begun. You are the hunted," he finished quietly, with stone cold resolve.

"Remind him that I am king," the king addressed his guards with cruel intention. "Remind him he has no magic, that his life has been left to my will and that I will treat it as

such." He took off his black, leather, work-gloves with an air of disgust and dropped them at the feet of his prisoner.

He would get what he wanted; it was only a matter of time. He was the most powerful man in the universe and an insignificant child that had been abandoned and left without magic would not stand in his way for long. No, the child's resolve would weaken, his courage would dissipate and his faith in the lost girl would diminish. It was only a matter of time.

He left the prison cell, closing the door to the horrified screams of the boy and found that he was smiling. No, it would not be long. Not long at all.

----

The girl woke screaming into the darkness, her body drenched in cold sweat and her hands trembling from the nightmare. The pain had been too much. The searing, sickening pain that would not quit.

And the man. The ominous eyes and determined grin. He would not give up. He would not stop.

But already the dream was fleeting, disappearing into the gray void between consciousness and the sleep state. She tried to grasp on to it, tried to keep the memory sharp, but it was too late. The images were not even memories anymore, just a fuzzy idea that reminded her she was alone.

Completely alone.