Ice pellets bit exposed flesh with each blast of wind, blowing snow and ice sideways in the gale’s force. In the distance the castles dark shadows and long, pointed, eye-like windows held the flickering of a candle’s flame.
The girl was tired, hungry, and cold. The icy paths of her tears traced along her cheeks, and the echoes of the village people’s screams rang in her ears. All of them lost to the flames and slaughter. The memory of her family’s warm blood was fresh in her mind. Everyone she had ever loved was gone, and it was her fault. She was the one the men had been after. She was the one the villagers had lost their lives protecting. She stumbled in the snow. She had been running for many days, and her strength was fading. The castle was so close now. If she could just get there before the cold, or grief consumed her, she could survive.

More images passed, unbidden, through her mind. Her younger sister, drowned in a pool of her mother’s blood. Her father’s body hanging from the rafters, dripping gore onto the corpses of her mother and sister. Her brother lying in a steaming pile of his internal organs. No. She was so close; so close now to warmth and safety. She pushed the memories of her dead family out of her mind as hope took control of her.

She could hear laughter and music up ahead. The notes of a beautiful melody drifted out of the castle windows, and danced in her ears. So close. The guards at the gate spotted her and she could hear them calling to each other, making the order to open the gate. The gates began to open, and the light from the courtyard beyond spilled between the gaping doors. As she stepped up to the threshold of the gates, a figure peeled away from the shadows. I knife materialized in his hands, and he drew his blade across her throat. The blood poured out of the gaping, red smile. She couldn't breathe, and when she tried she began to choke on her own blood. She dropped to the snow and the life ebbed out of her. All the death, all the sacrifice, had been for nothing. She died there, in the snow, surrounded by her blood, and covered in the blood of her family. Nothing more than a red speck in an endless field of white.