Prologue
Alona Cahill
“Your Highness, please, you must allow me to do my job.” Rowena rushed to help Alona with her hair.
“Rowena, in less than a year, I’ll be serving as Lady Driscoll’s maid way out in Sandur. How does anyone expect me to dress and style a great lady if I can’t even manage my own hair?”
Rowena leaned down behind her until Alona could see her maid’s reflection in her hand mirror. “My Lady, before you leave for Sandur, I will teach you everything you need to know. Until then, I intend to treat you as the princess you are.” She ran a brush through Alona’s blond mane. “Whatever traditional nonsense dictates, you were born a princess of this kingdom, and it makes no sense you should ever have to be anything less than what you are.”
“I am not above the law, no matter who my mother is.”
“She will get you out of this. I have faith. You will rule as your mother’s heir one day.”
“I was born without magic, just like you. I’m almost eighteen now, soon I’ll join the serving class. There’s no use pretending it isn’t so. Now, show me how you do my hair in that twisty thing.”
“Very well, my Lady.” Rowena guided Alona through the steps to secure her hair in a neat updo, perfect for traveling. “You seem nervous.”
“I’m more than just nervous. I’m petrified. What if Lady Driscoll asks me to serve her tea or something else I don’t know how to do yet?”
“She wouldn’t dare. Not a minute before your eighteenth birthday and probably not even after.”
“What do you mean, not even after?” Alona secured her traveling cloak in place with a jeweled broach her mother gave her last year.
“My Lady, I can’t imagine anyone will actually make you serve.”
“Then what am I to do with my life?” Alona’s eyes widened in alarm. For seventeen years she’d prepared herself for a future as a lady’s maid. She’d even had days when she couldn’t wait to get started in her new life. But if she wasn’t allowed to serve as her mother’s heir, nor allowed to serve as a maid in more than just name only, then how would she fill her days?
“Don’t trouble yourself, my Lady, I believe you will become more of a companion to Lady Driscoll than an actual servant. After all, you may be destined for the serving class, but you are still the queen’s daughter. That will never change.”
Alona couldn’t imagine a more boring task than to entertain an old lady waiting around to die. Lady Driscoll was a widow friend of her mother’s. She’d always believed the Lady would treat her well, and she knew her mother and Lady Driscoll had schemes to marry her into the merchant class after she’d served a few years as a maid. But Alona wanted to embrace her new life and the freedoms it brought. One of those freedoms was the right to make her own choices in a way she’d never been able to as a princess.
“Are you quite certain you don’t want me to go with you, your Majesty?”
“I can manage without you for a few weeks,” Alona insisted.
If the whole point of this trip was to meet her future employer, then she didn’t think it made sense to travel with an entourage befitting a princess. She’d had to argue her point with her mothers, but even they saw the sense in her request eventually. She still had to travel with the queen’s guard—the head of the guard no less. But Alona looked forward to spending time with Eamon Donovan, the captain of the palace guard and a man who’d been like a father to Alona. He would escort her safely north to Sandur, an exotic city along the coast of Eldur’s wasteland. She’d never traveled to the northern half of their kingdom before and was looking forward to the trip.
“Are you all set, sweetheart?” The queen consort peeked into her daughter’s rooms with a forced smile on her face.
“Yes, Mama, you two can come in now. I know you’ve been lurking in the halls for the last half hour. And I know you both have better things to do with your time.”
“We have nothing so pressing that we can’t wish our daughter a safe trip.” The queen crossed the room, taking a moment to adjust the broach at Alona’s throat. Both Queen Faolan and Queen Consort Tierney were her mothers in every sense of the word, but Faolan gave birth to her, hoping for a strong heir—something that was not in the cards for their little family.
“Lady Driscoll will take good care of you, my dear.” Faolan squeezed her hands.
“I think it’s supposed to be the other way around, Mother.” Alona smiled.
“Not yet.”
Her last year as a princess of Eldur would be filled with many ‘not yets.’ Her mothers wanted her to enjoy her last year at court, but Alona wanted to get it over with.
“I’ll be back before you know it, Mother.” She hugged the queens, leaving them behind to comfort each other.
For the first day and a half of her journey, Alona did as she should and rode in the carriage as befitting her current station. But on the afternoon of the second day, she chose to ride with Eamon and his men on horseback. She wanted to catch the first glimpse of Sol Loch’s crystal clear waters and the hot springs there. The air already smelled of sulfur, and the heat of the day caused Alona to travel with a cotton veil over her head and face to shield her from the sand and the heat. Had she been born with the power of the Eldur Fae, the sun would have strengthened her the way it did for all Eldurians. They were the strongest of the Fae, yet they were limited to using their magic only during the day. At night, Alona stood among equals.
“Just a little farther, Alona, and we’ll break for the evening at the hot springs,” Eamon said. “Maybe we can even find one of the mud springs where you and Finn used to have good old fashioned mud fights when you thought I wasn’t paying attention.” His grin was infectious, and so like his son’s. She’d grown up with Finn Donovan among the other children in residence at the palace.
Finn was just two years older than Alona, but most of the time he acted like he was seven—and probably still would when he was seventy.
“If we find a mud spring, I’ll be taking a mud bath. I believe I’ve outgrown mud fights.”
“You know, Lona, pigs take mud baths.” Eamon flashed a mischievous smile at her.
“Oh, you know very well the Ladies of the Eldur court pay good money for that mud.”
“You’re all nutters. Every last one of you refined sort.”
“Well, in a year I won’t be quite so refined.”
“You will always be a refined lady, my Lona.” Eamon’s handsome smile routinely melted the hearts of most of those ‘refined ladies’ at court. “Even covered in mud like a pig.”
“Oh, you just hush now.” She laughed.
“Morgan and O’Mally, ride ahead and find the lady a mud spring. And while you’re at it, put up her tent so she can rest before dinner."
“Yes, sir!” The two youngest soldiers of Eamon’s unit took off ahead, eager to do their commander’s bidding.
“Thank you, Eamon. I shouldn’t allow such luxuries, but I am tired, and I haven’t enjoyed the hot springs in ages.”