Prologue

The locals said the Forest was magical, that he shouldn't ride too far in there by himself. But he enjoyed his rides through the narrow Forest paths. It cleared his head. He liked to hunt small game and gift them to the villagers to win their favor. They said fairies lived in the Forest. He never saw one, until he came upon a rabbit caught in his trap. The rabbit was beautiful. Far too beautiful to be someone's meal, so he cut it free. Lo and behold she transformed into a fairy.

"You have saved my life," said the fairy. "I owe you a debt. Tell me, what is your heart's desire?"

The young man did not need long to give his answer. "I wish to be king." He wisely refrained from revealing that it was he who had set the trap.


Chapter 1

The regent sighed and rubbed his eyes with one hand. He was training his daughter, Princess Isabel, heir to the throne of Jardinia, on how to conduct the court, and so far, it was not going very well.

At the rate she was going, she wouldn't get through half the appeals that had been brought to court that day. When the lords of two neighboring villages brought forth their property dispute, she spent a full hour trying to make them come up with ways to share the orchard in question.

"Just give it to one or the other, or split it in half," he muttered.

But Isabel had lost her temper at the two lords and was shouting at them for not having any common sense. Some of the appellants actually got up and left the court after that.

"Alright, my dear, that's enough for today," Prince Henri had to step in firmly in front of his daughter. "Why don't you retire for the day? I shall settle this dispute."

Isabel was not too pleased with his response. He was very quick to dismiss, especially so when he was not happy with her progress. But it would not be wise to argue in front of the whole court.

So instead she said, "As you say, Father." Then she added rather haughtily. "I do not have the patience to speak with such narrow minded landlords." With that she left in a huff.

Prince Henri really did not wish to keep ruling Jardinia for much longer, but with only a little over a year left before his daughter came of age, he doubted he would be able to get her ready in time. He might never be able to get her ready, and then he would be stuck as regent forever.

Isabel was not too popular with the Jardinian council, especially with Henri's chief adviser, Lord Francis. He thought she was an insolent child, and Henri suspected he disparaged the regent's parenting behind his back.

In her defense, though, Isabel did put on her best behavior during council meetings, but she would get very short-tempered when her naïve ideas were naturally dismissed. Lord Francis would be especially affronted when she would demand explanations, and Henri himself never found her to be easily swayed by reason.

The real trouble between Isabel and the council had been brewing only over the past few weeks since a large topic of discussion was Isabel's marriage. Over the past few months, Jardinia, along with the other kingdoms in the Foretlands had been making alliances with the Inghet kingdom of Fier. In fact, the queen of Lavigne, Jardinia's closest neighbor, was going to marry the younger brother of the king of Fier. The Jardinian council was quite anxious to see their future queen similarly married to the youngest brother of the king of Fier, but Isabel of course was not one to cooperate with this plan.

Prince Andrei had arrived a few weeks prior and his reputation had preceded him to the Foretlands. He had served as ambassador for his brother the king in the Inghetlands. Then he had followed his older brother Ioan to the Foretlands and begun to serve as the Inghet ambassador among all the Foret kingdoms. Prince Henri and the entire Jardinian council were quite taken with him. He was very charming and charismatic, and had vast knowledge of trade and politics. He had been intimately involved in the governance of Fier, and he was certain to make a great ruler.

At first, Isabel had shown considerable interest in meeting him, but not long after meeting him, she turned rude and scornful and rebuffed him at every opportunity. This was not unusual for her, for she had successfully antagonized all the eligible young men in the Foretlands, but her father had hoped that with Prince Andrei, perhaps she would put in more effort.

She was proving to be much more difficult than he had ever anticipated. For the hundredth time, he wished his wife, the late queen, were still alive.


Once she left the courtroom, Isabel sought out Lord Francis. She had been devising a plan to build more libraries throughout the kingdom, but every time she approached him about it, he dismissed it as not feasible. This time, she had quizzed her maids regarding how well-read they were, and she was shocked by how little knowledge they had about their own kingdom, let alone other parts of the world.

Lord Francis would not believe her and insisted that her maids were simply too scared to speak with her. Isabel had to admit that they were always slightly nervous around her, but that did not change the fact that they were rather poorly-read. She was sure this must extend to the rest of the kingdom.

She had brought him a detailed proposal of her plans, but he took one cursory look at it and said, "With all due respect, your highness, we would not be able to afford what you are proposing."

Isabel frowned. "But I thought you said during the last council meetings that our finances were in good shape."

"Well, yes, there are no deficits, but this does not mean we have money to throw away, Princess."

"We wouldn't be throwing it away," she retorted. "We would be investing in the education of the people."

"Building libraries won't change anything, my dear," the old man shook his head. "You can build libraries, but you can't make your people read. And after all, you know we have to start spending more on defenses. Our alliance with Fier might not be enough to stop the raids from the Inghet bandits."

After trying to plead with him unsuccessfully, she lost her temper and walked away in a bad mood. She knew better than to shout at Lord Francis. He could be most unpleasant when he was angry. And after all, he was her oldest living relative, uncle to her late mother. He had served as her chief adviser when she had ruled, although Isabel suspected they had not got along very well either.

She retired to her favorite place in the entire palace – the library. She had not been given the luxury of having her own study, but the palace library was rather large and spanned several rooms. She had made a private corner for herself in the upper level where no one else ever ventured. She spent most of her time here, or on a window seat with a book on her lap.

This was where her cousin Lady Miel found her when she came to look for the princess. Miel was Isabel's chief lady-in-waiting, and pretty much her only friend. That too, only because they had grown up together. Miel's parents, Lord Francis's daughter and son-in-law, had passed away during an unfortunate trip in which they had caught a nasty fever. Miel had grown up with Isabel ever since and had access to the same education and opportunities that the princess had, but Isabel had always dominated over her cousin.

"Lord Francis can be so aggravating!" Isabel complained as soon as she noticed Miel.

"What's happened now?" Miel asked, taking a seat. She did not quite like to hear Isabel's complaints about her grandfather, but she was not very close with him either.

She listened patiently to Isabel's tirade and then calmly informed her that the seamstress had arrived with the new dresses that they would wear to Queen Adaline's wedding. Isabel put away her book and followed her cousin out of the library.

"Just like Adaline to hold a lavish wedding to celebrate handing over her sovereignty to her husband," Isabel commented scornfully, shaking her head, as they made their way down the stairs.

Miel pursed her lips. She was on quite good terms with Adaline and did not like it when Isabel spoke too dismissively of her, but this was interesting news.

"So there were no objections to Prince Ioan assuming sovereignty of Lavigne?"

Isabel frowned. "From what I gather, the consensus was that this would strengthen our alliances with Fier. Of course, we all expected Adaline to pass sovereignty to her husband," she scoffed. "But I thought the Lavignian council might be a little more cautious of having an Inghet ruler."

Having foreign princes marry into the throne was actually very common in the Foretlands. The Foret kingdoms followed matriarchal succession. Kingdoms passed from mother to daughter. But very rarely did the queens assume full control over their land. They always had political marriages and the marriage contracts specified what kind of position their husbands would hold in the royal council. Isabel's father had been the adviser of trade and commerce, as well as of infrastructure, before he was forced to become regent. In a few instances, as in Adaline's case, the queens chose to hand over complete authority to their husbands and made them king. Usually Foret queens married younger sons of other Foret monarchs, but in some instances like this one, they married princes from other regions of the world. However, it was rare that a completely foreign prince would be handed sovereignty of a Foret kingdom, but all the kingdoms seemed to have placed a lot of trust in their new Inghet allies.

Miel knew that Isabel was determined to maintain sovereignty upon marriage, and recently she had complained to no end that the council was insisting on a political marriage with Fier, similar to Adaline's. Miel was fairly certain that Isabel's primary objection to Prince Andrei was the fact that he would be a little too eager to take up sovereignty in Jardinia if she married him. But other than that, Isabel would have to have a political marriage, and Miel doubted she would ever find love. Her haughtiness had driven away all eligible young men in the Foretlands, and she always rebuffed the affections of anyone she deemed unsuitable for her. She had no dearth of admirers, since she was exceptionally beautiful, but usually her admirers did not last long.


The dress fitting went about as well as usual. After Isabel nitpicked every dress that was brought, the seamstress got a sense of what would make Isabel satisfied. The next time she would come with a single dress that Isabel would struggle to find faults with and then concede to wear it.

After it was done, and they returned to the princess's chambers, both girls received a surprise. Someone had left a bouquet of red roses on the table. Isabel's jaw dropped in surprise, as she picked up the bouquet to examine it closely.

"From whom are these?" she asked and Miel shrugged.

"Well then ask the servants," she ordered impatiently, turning her attention back to the bouquet. It couldn't be from Prince Andrei, could it? He had been trying for the past few weeks, quite unsuccessfully she might add, to court her. But the bouquet had no note, so it could not have been him.

Miel returned with one of Isabel's maids, Lisette, the girl with the burn on her face. Isabel looked away. She always felt uncomfortable looking at the girl's scar.

She curtsied and said, "I found the bouquet left in your sitting room, so I brought it inside. I didn't see anyone bring it, your highness, but the gardener was in earlier to tend to the plants inside."

"Thank you Lisette," said Miel, dismissing the girl and turned to look at Isabel. She would not be happy about this.

"Miel, please accompany me to the garden," Isabel bid her calmly. "We need to pay Christien a visit."

Miel prayed Christien would stick to his place. She recalled that he had been rather bold recently in addressing the princess ever since his promotion to head gardener. He was actually probably Isabel's only admirer who had lasted this long.

As they approached, Christien looked up from the bushes, walked over wearing a large warm smile, and bowed deeply.

"Good afternoon, Princess, Lady Miel."

"Good afternoon, Christien, I trust my mother's garden is well?" Isabel's tone was casual and conversational.

Christien smiled. "Yes, Princess, all the rose bushes have come in full bloom by now," he said proudly.

Isabel drew herself up. "Christien, I have been meaning to ask you – why does the garden have such a high proportion of red roses this year? You know my mother was partial to white roses."

Christien was surprised by the question. "But you are partial to red roses," he said confidently, "I thought-"

"It doesn't matter what you thought," she snapped. "The garden is now in my mother's memory, and it should look just the way she had always kept it."

Christien's face was impassive. "As you wish, Princess, we shall start over."

"And one more thing," Isabel continued. "I found a bouquet of roses in my sitting room today. Do you know anything about it?"

"The roses are all in full bloom, so I thought you might like them," he replied quietly.

"You presume too much," Isabel told him coldly. "Be careful that you don't overstep your boundaries." With that, she walked away, her skirts rustling in the grass, and Miel following in her wake, thinking that it could have gone worse.

Miel could not comprehend why the gardener persisted in trying to get in her highness's good graces when she had rebuffed him most scornfully several times, and she suspected this wouldn't be the last.