I hope you’re all as excited as I am! After a year of waiting, this is it! I decided to just surprise you all, and not tell anyone it was coming. 🙂
I’d like to thank all my friends that helped me break up writer’s block–the ones I e-mailed and snail-mailed (love you girls, Ellen and Savannah!) and everyone who commented on posts like this. And my parents, who proof-read this story and helped me sift the typos and inconsistencies. I really appreciate you guys!
Okay, quick note and then I’ll let you read: I’m going to be posting twice a week, on Tuesday and Friday. There are close to thirty parts, so even posting twice a week this could take up quite a bit of the summer! The Mushroom Feast was the longest story before, with thirteen parts, and The Sacrifice is over twice as long!
Anyway, I’ll stop now. Enjoy!
~The Sacrifice~ 
Part First: When the Flowers Bloom. . .
The great mountain-range stretched far South; running hundreds of miles, peak after snow-capped peak. Very near the center of the long line was a wide valley, green with grass. It was surrounded by mountains, and in the middle of it was a city. Around this city ran a high wall of gray stone, with great black gates facing West. Inside the wall were houses and huts and small gardens, and smooth, narrow streets, where the townspeople lived; and in the very center of it all stood a castle, its tall, gray towers rising high into the air like the mountain-peaks around it, topped with fluttering, white flags like the snow-crowned crags of the range. In this castle dwelt the King and Queen of the Valley, Cedric and Eleanor. They had two children: Prince Henry, who was the heir to the throne, and his younger sister, nineteen-year-old Penelope.
