Lions and Lambs

Prologue

In the Beginning

On the seventh month of the seventh day in the two hundredth year, three remarkable things happened: a baby was born, a monster was created, and an empire rose. In accordance with these events, a priestess in the far East of the rising religion known as the Nameless had a vision sent by God himself, and had no other choice but to hang herself from the rafters.

There was a girl

The small country of Solev had known the rule of three kind and senile old men for the past fifty years, and the inhabitants were rather alright with that besides the few riots here and there. They had no army, for a small coastal country on the edge of the Fourth Sea was rarely threatened, mostly because they were not rich and the only export of interest was a bit of salt. The council of old senile men had, of course, heard about the powerful empire growing from a continent over, but to them that was a world away.

Until it wasn't.

When the budding empire marched into their lovely seaside country, they were met with little resistance from three senile men, and their subjects posed even less of a threat. Grander kingdoms were razed and burned to the ground by the great and almighty Emperor Teznun, but Solev did not see the need for such theatrics; they preferred not to have their women raped and children taken as warrior slaves to serve under a foreign banner.

On that very same day, in a brothel at the edge of the country, a whore gave birth to a lovely baby girl. The moment she popped the squealing thing out, she took a long drag of opium and promptly died. The reluctant father of the baby looked on with wide eyes as his method of brief sexual pleasure left him with a child, and his thoughts immediately fled to the wife at home who would, without a doubt, be displeased by this illegitimate baby. Since the man was raised with a routine sense of duty, he opted to take the baby girl home rather than leave her to the She-wolves prowling the brothel.

He alone named the baby Sabine, which ironically meant mistake in the far eastern language of Qui. She grew up to be an unpleasant but smart young girl who despised the vast majority of people she came into contact with, though by the age of seven she could read exceptionally well for a child who went to a school taught by yet another old man. She had two half-sisters whom she hated and felt intense jealousy towards, mostly because of how much their mother doted on them.

She grew up in a family that did not make much money, but made enough to let her know how the other half lived. So, from the day Sabine and the step-mother who hated her walked into Solev's only city at the age of eight, she realized how much she wanted to be like the beautiful women walking through the streets arm in arm with handsome young men. She wanted a pretty silk and chiffon dress, and she would get it even if it took her a billion years.

Until then, Sabine's life remained in a monotonous manner for four more years, but the important part began the night of her twelfth birthday. Of course, she is only one of the three remarkable things to happen on the seventh month of the seventh day.

A Boy

Azli was three years old when his mother, the Onkalov's favorite consort, tried to run away with her son, who happened to be fifth in line for the throne after his four older siblings, only one of which having been born to the Onkalov's legal wife. It was on the seventh day of the seventh month that the Onkalov caught them and burned his consort to death in front of their son. As one might expect, this frightened the boy and he became a quiet, reclusive thing.

If things had gone according to plan, Azli's older half-brother would have taken the throne in fifty or so years and had the rest of his siblings murdered and all would be right- no one would remember the sullen fifth son. But, as it was, things did not go according to plan.

Everyone in the family knew that the Onkalov was insane, but very few bothered to mention it as he was an effective conqueror and made everyone very rich, which translated into no one giving much of a damn about the state of his mental health. Of course, children that grow up around a man who burns his consorts do not often turn out the way they ought.

For the first thirteen years of his life, Azli lived in one small but beautiful section of the palace located in the capital of the growing empire- a lovely place on the opposite side of the Fourth Sea. He made very few friends because all of the siblings loathed and mistrusted each other, and although he had many many toys, none of them kept his interest quite like his stuffed lion did . It was ugly and mangy with patched fur and a mane and his old nanny had given it to him before he died. He had a soft spot for its little velvet nose and glassy black eyes. He carried it around with him until he turned fourteen, and after that he slept with it every night.

Ambition had burned away along with his mother six years ago, but on the day of his fourteenth birthday, he and most of his half-siblings were sent away.

And a monster

Magic, also known as Spirita, was well known across the world, though each culture interpreted it much differently. The scholars who studied this mysterious and fantastical property of their universe knew little to nothing, and half of them either ended up homeless on the streets or six feet below ground after getting into an argument with a fellow scholar about where magic came from and how best to wield it. The only thing that these scholars could actually agree upon was a monstrous figure that was embodied by the fifth and most complicated form of enchantment. Legend said that the figure was once as human as everyone else; a little boy with a family of his own. From there the tales become murky, but they all end the same. The little boy lost himself to magic and became a creature of smoke and shadow. Unfortunately, every scholar that made any discoveries beyond this were later assassinated and their studies were subsequently burned.

Of course, the legends have been around for thousands of years, but on the seventh day of the seventh month two hundred or so years before the girl was born, a boy asked the shadows a question, and since they were feeling rather chatty that day, they answered.