Prologue
A girl wearing a light blue dress sits at a grand piano, playing a sweet tune that echoes softly through her home. The day outside is beautiful, one of the most beautiful her country has seen in years, with a light breeze, and few clouds in the sky. She hears gleeful shouts from the open window and smiles. Would her younger brothers never tire from their games of heroism and adventures?
She gets up, her wavy blond hair falling just past her shoulders. It’s nice outside, so she decides join them. She walks down the stairs and out the front gate of her home, and, sure enough, there are her brothers, playing games.
“You’re no match for me!” one of the boys shouts, swinging a wooden sword all around him. He is no more than five, but like most five year olds, his energy drives him, and he runs about the meadow, shouting threats and insults.
“You lousy hero! You can never defeat me! Never! All the world shall be mine!” The boy trips then, and flops down onto the grass, but it isn’t long before he gets up and shouts out again.
Another boy, much older than his brother, at seven, also has a wooden sword. He runs forward and cries, “You can never win! I’ll defeat you yet, scoundrel! And then I shall win the lady of honor and rescue her from...from...how does it go, Grandmother? I forgot.”
“From your hand of evil,” says an old woman who was watching, barely concealing a smile. Her hair is gray, and pulled back in a bun behind her head, but it isn’t hard to tell that it used to be blond.
“Yes! I shall rescue her from your hand of evil!”
The younger boy looks at him indignantly. “You will not! You...you....” he spots the girl watching them. “Alana! What’s a good name for this hero who is challenging me?”
The girl walks up to them, and shakes her head sadly. “His proper name should be fake. Or imaginary, or fanciful, or nonexistent, or even not real at all. Heroes are just stories, Sammy, they don’t really exist.”
The older boy frowns. “But they do exist, Grandmother told us so! She’s even being our maiden of honor. You can go next, if you want.”
“No thank you, Derik. I’m fourteen years old, much too old too believe in such nonsense! Grandmother, why are you filling their heads with senseless stories? You know all of that isn’t true. There aren’t any real heroes, at least, not anymore. I doubt that there ever were. It’s completely stupid.”
“Alana, these stories aren’t false. There are real heroes today, still living. There’s been heroes as long as the world has existed,” the old woman says.
“Yes, along with dragons and magic and flying horses.”
The younger boy runs to his grandmother, and looks up at her. “Grandmother, why didn’t you ever tell me that there were horses that fly?” he asks in an injured voice.
The old woman laughs. “There aren’t, darling. Alana just doesn’t believe in heroes.”
“Well,” the girl says impatiently, “That’s because they don’t exist. I mean, a hero has to be brave, wealthy, and all kinds of things. He has to like everyone else better than he likes himself, and he has to be good, and kind, and perfect, and dashing, and handsome, and unstoppable, and the best at everything. People like that just don’t exist anymore.”
“Of course they do! Besides, a hero doesn’t have to be all those things, after all, no one is perfect. I knew a hero once, and at first you would think he was the most unlikely hero you’d ever meet.”
The girl tutted disbelievingly.
“Sit down, all of you, on the grass,” the woman says. She sits, pulling the younger boy into her lap, and the older boy sits right next to her, but the girl doesn’t move.
“Are you going to tell us another wild story?” she asks, a smile of amusement playing at her lips.
“No, no, not at all,” the old woman says, smiling. “This story is true, I promise.”
The younger boy looks up at her. “Have we already heard this one, Grandmother?”
She shakes her head. “No, this is a story I haven’t told you before, and it really happened. Sit down, Alana, you should hear it too.”
“Oh, all right.” Reluctantly, the girl sits down on the grass. “Is it really a true story?”
“Of course it is, I was there!”
The boys gasp in amazement; even the girl can’t stop her bright blue eyes from growing wide. “You?” the older boy says. “You were there? That’s so cool! Tell us, Grandmother, tell us!”
She laughs, looking at the beautiful world around her. “You know, Alana, you live in such a beautiful place. Didn’t you ever wonder what kept it beautiful?”
“I don’t know,” the girl says.
“Well, I do. I’m going to tell you three a story, now, and just listen, because I guarantee every last word is true.”
The girl starts to interrupt, but both of her brothers shush her, so she sits back with amusement and exasperation evident in her expression.
“Now, all this happened quite some time a go, but I remember it perfectly. I do believe it all started with a little girl named Zelda. She was about ten years old at the time, and she first noticed something was wrong when it was a beautiful day just like this. She had been sitting on a balcony outside her room, and all of the sudden, she felt cold....”