The Forbidden City of Kiysall

Prologue

On October 19, 1533, in Venice, Italy used to be the most beautiful place to visit when it came to its rainstorms. The bright flowers in their pots overfilling with the water because of the downpour. Its beauty was then clouded by its worst times. Maybeth Williams was to be hung today along with a few others supposedly in her cult. Maybeth was researching plants and how they can be used to help treat the kids with a new disease that struck Venice like a viper. Times have truly changed, it feels like just yesterday Maybeth and Alydia, the daughter of Maybeth's master and one of the famous, but poor, men in the village, took a trip down the Merchants' road, buying apples for a snack, something Maybeth barely ever received. Her father wasn't cruel to Maybeth, but money was difficult to obtain. "When was the last time you ate, my dear Alydia?" Maybeth asked as she held onto Alydia's arm, locked together, observing the sketchy dirt path,

"Earlier this morning, the small biscuit that you saved me from last night's dinner before father left. When was the last time you ate Maybeth?" Alydia had replied, her blue eyes shining up to Maybeth's ember eyes. Maybeth was tall and thin, her hair was a brownish-black, in thick dreadlocks that stopped at her hips. She wore tattered pants and a makeshift shirt from an old potato bag.

Alydia wished she could give Maybeth some of the dresses her mother forced her to wear, but their sizes were different and they would get into a lot of trouble. Alydia wore a white, off the shoulder, a light dress that puffed her chest up more than she pleased, a red large scarf covering her shoulders and chest, and black Victorian heels. Her silver hair put up in a braid and hidden under the scarf her parents forced her to wear, they made her never put it down since she was considered a disgrace for it. Silver was a rare hair color, people were considered witches because they assumed that they put a spell on their hair to change it to such color.

"Here," Maybeth said handing a small silver coin over to the seller, handing a bright red apple to her.

"Maybeth! Take it, please," Alydia offered her the apple, but Maybeth only patted her head, smiling down at her. "Your hair, Alydia, only seems to turn more silver when you smile," she commented, brushing the loose strand back into her scarf. They would always walk to the single willow tree on the hill above the village. It was a secluded place where Alydia could let her hair down without anyone caring, both enjoying as the window blew their free locks around.

Soon, the beautiful smiles the two shared were going to end with the deceiving lies of others.

One bright and early morning we were burdened with the sound of the door being slammed open, almost shaking the whole cottage and scaring us all. My father hurried to the door, but

The Church bells rang above us, the clock on the court's tower struck three, a common time was known as the witching hour before dawn. They were fools that shoved papers with the word 'Truth' down their throats and thought they knew what the Lord wanted. Maybeth was innocent, whether she was a slave or the richest woman in Venice. She was up there because of her color, not because she was actually convicted for being a witch. The sun glowed around her, her brown skin looked golden and soft, but the ragged clothes that she was forced to wear in the cell were torn and beat up from the weeks she spent in there. Her appearance started to fade away from my view; her hair that Alydia used to play with when she was little was now disappearing. Tears flooded Alydia's eyes, wiping them away as they came. "Let her go!" She screamed, lashing her way towards Maybeth only to be grabbed by both her silk nightgown and her long silver hair, "She is no witch! Please, I will give you the amount she was paid for when my father bought her. Double the amount!... Triple!" she screamed as the men held her back, "Please!" Alydia went on, "Maybeth!" was the last sound that soon fell into silence for what felt like hours, but just a measly second before the uproar the cheering crowd, the screams of Maybeth in the back as her skin boiled. They didn't want her to burn to ashes so they extinguished the fire with a bucket of water, her body blistered and destroyed, every hair on her body gone from the fire. She was no longer beautiful, but the disgusting mutant everyone but Alydia saw her as.

"Alydia Patronymic, only daughter of Marcella and Lance Patronymic. Seventeen years old, three of her sisters were stillbirths, two of her brothers died from a terrible illness as an infant, and her two older brothers died in the war. Explain to me, Alydia, how you are the only child that survived?" asked the priest standing next to Maybeths dead body, staring down at the body of Alydia's that was curled up on the dirt.

"I do not know!" She whispered, her body shaking as tears fled down her red cheeks, "I do not know..."

"So be it, guards, escort Miss Patronymic back home, make sure she stays there. Her trial will be in the next fortnight. This wretched witches body shall remain here until the day you are proven guilty of witchcraft where you two will be together," proclaimed the Priest, "To Our Father, Our Son, and The Holy Spirit," raising his hand to his lips he kissed the back of his thumb, raising it to the sky. If only he was aware that God played no role in this act.

Laying in a pile of hay, wearing the same nude silk nightgown Alydia was wearing the day before. She couldn't stop crying over what had happened. One second she was teaching Maybeth how to read, she was teaching Alydia how to mix plants together for cures and infections. Maybeth even taught her history and how to visit it in her dreams. Yes, she was a witch, but she never deserved to be hanged, she was good... She was good.

In the middle of the night, Alydia snuck out from her bedroom window and running over to the trees. She made it back to the town square, her feet aching from the rocks and dirt that stabbed into her bare feet. Relentless, quickly taking the blade she stole from the kitchen to cut down Maybeth, holding back her tears until she was finished. Taking one of the horses in the stable, Alydia laid Maybeth on top, riding out into the forest, deep into the middle. A wide opening formed from the trees, a large Coast Redwood Trees planted in the middle. Hoping off the giant white horse, she began to make a funeral pyre out of surrounding wood. Laying Maybeth down on top of the pyre, a few tears escaping her already blood-red eyes as she guided the flaming torch over to her friend's lifeless body, setting her pyre ablaze.

"Deus autem mors, mitto hanc animam in Caelum donec reincarnated, protego anima," she whispered as the smoke rose higher and higher, the flames turned into a rose color with a deep black base.

"There she is! The witch! I heard her chants as I followed the smoke!" a peasant man screamed, "I saw her crawl out of her window and ride Death's white horse here!" He continued as the Towns Guards flooded into the circle of trees.

Alydia never turned from her friend, her body was no more, what would take hours, took only minutes with the fire she summoned to dispose of her, "Requiesce in pace, mi amor" she said to Maybeths ashes, holding onto the flaming logs, wanting to hold on and burn with her. She knew that was a dream she couldn't make into a reality. Thrown back into this hell with a knout that hissed as it hit Alydias back, blood staining her now ripped gown. She did not cry, she did not scream, she accepted. She lost her best friend, someone who cared about her more than her family. She no longer cared.

Dragged into the town, Alydia's hands were tied to a rope that one of the riders held onto. The sun rose on their journey, the sun scorching her naked, gashed, and bloody body. The town was waiting, they were aware of what had happened, her mother standing in the crowd wearing a dark dress to hide. Alydia's father stood on top of the steps, staring down with disappointment.

"Miss Patronymic was found chanting Lucifer's words as the body of Maybeth Williams burned. We will not let this crime come without punishment, certainly, show no mercy to a treacherous witch such as herself. God shall show you his mercy, he will judge what you deserve," Announced the Priest, wearing his long, gold church gown and his silver-white Biretta, "Is there anything you would like to say, say it now, it will be the last thing you shall every speak,"

"Reincarnation Dei dabo, miserere est habere quod diaboli est probates fuerit accipient! You shove the word of a false God upon your lips and believe this will give you the heaven you so think you deserve," She spat as the men tied her hands behind her back, the noose around her thin, bruised neck, "You all should be considered witches, condemning poor women to their deaths to please a God? Pitiful,"

As the seven o'clock church bell chimed echoing as the lever was pulled, the screaming of a childless mother, the cheering of a blood-hungry crowd, and the silence of the truth within the damned.