I cannot for the life of me remember the title of the novel I suddenly remembered and wanted to read again. The MC starts out as a slave and human sacrifice to entertain the young masters like a fox hunted by hunters in an arena of death. Like prey, the people enslaved with her (all children) are massacred by arrows, but she survives and gets employed by one of those young masters (who later becomes the true love of her life, her spouse and father of her children). Before all that happens as an adult, she meets a boy who at some point looses his family to a public execution by the royal family. The pair vow to love each other and grow with each other. Later on, the boy becomes the king of a northern country and she becomes a general. Along the way their paths grow apart and she leaves with a heavy heart. Another emperor also falls in love with her, but never really reveals it before his poisoned to death by his own mother. Does the novel ring a bell, anyone?