It was the cold that awoke me, it was carried on the air like a fine mist that permiated the soul. My eyes opened to the sight of a tall woman standing over me, her eyes were cold with the piercing look as she both literally and metaphorically looked down on me.

"Who are you?" She asked, her voice with the cold devoidance of the absence of emotion.

"I don't know." I stated. Her expression was unmoving as if my response is a lie not worth hearing, or she was deaf. "I do not remember who i am." Realising that laying down was not the ideal pose for good impressions, i upright myself, bringing me to my feet, yet despite the added distance from the floor, the woman still stood over me.

"You do not belong here." Her words cold, slow, measure, certain. Testing.

"Where is here?" I ask, making my eyebrows do a questioning pose.

"This is my castle, it is where the young are taught." For a brief moment i am able to detect a hint pride in her voice before it returns the previous emotionless and unrevealing tone.

"What are you teaching them?" I ask

She hesitates, her expression falters to disbelieving my apparent stupidity. Then her cold demeanor changed, becoming hostile. I instinctivly step backbout of self preservation. She reaches out, making a grasping motion with her hand, as she does the misty cold air swirls around her outstretched arm, condensing into a pale blue ghostly snake coiled around her from her elbow to her wrist.

"Do you think you can play the fool here? Tell me who you are and who sent you and i will not kill you." The hostility in her voice was threatening enough without the threatening words or the snake.

"I can't remember." I said panicking. I thought hard to how did i get here, it hurt, the pain of remembering was barely numbed by my panic. Suddenly flashes of fragments of peices of memories appeared: pain, so tired but i must not stop they are coming, sadness, the forest rushing past as i ran, falling, falling.

"Well then you must die." The snake sprung from its coiled position, flying near instantly arriving before my face and stopped. The snake stared into my eyes burning my skin without heat, without touching.

"It apears you were telling the truth." The snake dissipated. The tall woman calmly walks around the room to behind the desk and sits down.

My heart beat loudly. "Why did you do that?" I feel exhausted.

"I Had to make certain that you are not a spy." She said that as if it explained everything. "Since you are not that means that you will need to stay here." She reaches into a draw under the desk and places a dull metal tablet decorated by eight small circles held together by a larger one. "Place your hand in the center." In fear of incurring her wrath i immediatly do so. The main circle glows and of the eight surrounding circles four glowed. "That's enough". I take my hand off, she stares at the glowing circles intently as if it told my life story. She places a a sheet of paper on to the table. "You will stay here to learn or untill you regain your memories, you will work with the guards to pay for the duration of your stay. You look to be about twelve so you should fit in with the new group, do you remember you name?"

what? "No."

"In that case you will be needing a new name. You shall be called..." She turned over the peice of paper, placed it in front of her, picked up a feathered quill and wrote at the top of the page "Lore."