- Prologue -

The cries of the newborn baby pierced the air. My mother held up the tiny infant, the new prince of Telmar (and Narnia).

"Do you want to see your new brother?" my mother asked me.

I nodded and peered over her shoulder curiously at the person she held in her arms.

"He looks like daddy," I commented.

My mother nodded in agreement.

Then the maid spoke. "Shall I fetch King Miraz?"

The beautiful woman before me nodded her head once again, slowly this time so as not to wake the now-sleeping baby. "And make sure Avaline gets to bed, please, Balmia."

"Yes, your majesty," Balmia, the maid and my personal nurse, replied. She bowed to my mother, Queen Prunaprismia, before taking my hand in hers and leading me out of the room.

"Where are we going, Balmia?" I asked her as we travelled down the halls of the Telmarine castle.

"Going to fetch your father. Then, we're going to put the little princess to sleep."

When she said the word "princess," I sighed. As the princess, my father, the powerful King Miraz, gets to regulate my sleep schedule. But he doesn't really care. He's always been too busy to give a second thought to my bedtime. So he leaves it up to my mother, who normally leaves it up to Balmia. She always makes me go to bed early. All I ever want to do is stay up, though.

Balmia and I continued, hand in hand, down dark corridor after dark corridor. At such a late hour, it was doubtful we'd find him. He probably was asleep somewhere. Thought I'd never admit it to anyone else, I was beginning to get a little tired, as well.

I began to hear voices further down the hall.

"Your lordship, you know the standard of royalty. We cannot have him around any longer. He will ruin any chances of ever-"

We turned a corner and saw that the voice was my father's. When we came close enough, Balmia cleared her throat and curtsied, silently requesting his attention.

"Yes?" my father asked. His eyes narrowed when he saw me at her side. "Why is she still awake?"

She ignored his question. "My king, Queen Prunaprismia requests your presence upstairs. She has given birth to a son."

At hearing this, he jumped in surprise. "A son?"

Balmia simply nodded.

"I'll go see her at once." His face turned in disgust as his gaze came to rest on me. "And see to it that the princess gets to sleep immediately."

My nurse curtsied one more time to the king before he left. Then she turned her attention to me.

"Come now, Little Princess. We must get you in bed before anyone else finds you awake. We don't want to cause trouble on the night your mother has given birth."

We walked up a staircase and down two dark corridors, lit only by torches attached to the walls. Finally, we reached my quarters. Balmia opened the door for me and bowed as I entered. She came in after me and headed straight to the wardrobe in the corner of the room. She picked out a loght pink sleeping gown for me to change into and led me to the thin screen that I change behind.

As soon as I was finished changing into my night clothes and my hair was released from it's braided half-up style, I climbed into my large, cozy bed.

Balmia looked down at me with a small smile before taking the bed sheets and tucking me in. "Goodnight, little princess," she said. She leaned in to kiss my cheek and was just about to leave the room when I stopped her.

"Wait!" she turned to me questioningly. "Nurse, will you read me a bedtime story?"

She looked at me sympathetically. "I have the queen to tend to now, and it is far too late for stories tonight. My apologies."

I nodded my head once in understanding. Then she left, closing the door behind her and leaving me in complete darkness.

It seemed like I had been asleep for onky seconds when a large hand wad suddenly clamped over my mouth, waking me. I tried to scream, but it only came out muffled bt the hand. I struggled to loosen myself from the person's grasp - I think it's a man - but I lose strength quickly being that most ten-year-old girls aren't very strong. The world became blurry and the last thing I remembered was sinking into deeper darkness than I thought possible.