There were very few things more exhilarating than sneaking somewhere one was not supposed to be. And as Tilda, the scullery maid did just that, the rush of it made her blood sing so loudly that it pounded in her ears, drowning out even the sound of her nervous breathing.<br/><br/>As she walked up the winding stairs of the massive house proper, she cast wary glances over her shoulder-waiting for one of the pages, Jon or Casper-to catch her out and return her to her rightful place in the kitchens. It was a dangerous thing, to walk so freely about the house and if she were could she could be turned away for her insolence, but that was a risk she simply had to take.<br/><br/>Ever since she was a girl she had been fascinated by books and everything involving the written word. She starved for stories like a beggar starved for bread. They were her life line and hope where she otherwise would have had none. And they were, she believed, her chance to make a better life than what she had been born into.<br/><br/>Tilda was an orphan, abandoned some sixteen years ago on the steps of the large house she now snuck through. The owners had taken her in, giving her to the kitchen staff. There she had been raised and trained. But cooking was not in her destiny. Her favorite room in the whole house was the library, tall enough that it had its own staircase and lined end to end with every book imaginable. There were long mahogany tables where someone could pour over maps of atlases, thick leather chairs for curling up in on rainy days, and a large brick fireplace with a fur rug where Tilda had often played when she was too young to truly know better.<br/><br/>She entered the room, finally breathing a sigh of relief and awe as she did each time she came here. She swore if she could have, she would have lived and died here. Shaking herself out of her thoughts, she closed the door behind her and approached one shelf in particular. Tilda took a book from a large shelf and deposited it and herself in front of the fireplace, which had not yet been stoked. Spreading her heavy wool skirt around her legs, she tucked her feet under its warmth and slowly opened the thick leather cover.<br/><br/>Leaning down over the tome, her auburn hair spilled into her bright green eyes. Tilda knew how to read, she had been taught as a girl with the practical intent of needing to be able to read grocery lists when she was sent to the market.<br/><br/>It was true that her skills were not as vast as she desired them to be, and she tripped over some of the larger words in the old text but each day she came here she felt her mind absorbing more and more. Soon, she felt, she would know enough to leave Vasille and join one of the abbeys where mages and scholars studied.<br/><br/>......<br/><br/>Leaving Vasille was not something that just anyone did. The King Overlord had seen to that. He had spread his belief that any who dared venture from their home country would be met with a gruesome end only to spend their eternal lives shackled in the Pit where the Dark One would feast on their bodies. Bit he was suspicious, always-that one of his vassals would find their curiosity to strong to deny.<br/><br/>That was the thing of weaving lies, it left you suspicious and distrustful of those even in the inner most circle. Even now, as the King stood at his window, listening to his advisor describe the details of a particularly gruesome murder and what punishment seemed most fitting, his eyes were focused on the large window that looked out into the Forest, waiting for the tell tale whisper of leaves that would give away someone walking through the forbidden woods. Someone leaving, someone having ideas bigger than themselves. Someone that might be the end of him.