I bent over and placed my hand on the recently tilled mound of dirt and then let my energy flow through it until I connected with the kernel below. It responded to my touch, and I didn't release it until the newly formed shoot grazed my fingers.

"One down," I said with a long sigh, looking at the rows I had left to do that day spread across our farm, "a thousand more to go."

"Are you talking to yourself, Ava, or do you think those plants can hear you?" a familiar voice asked.

"Phillip!" I raced over to my friend and threw my arms around him. "I mean, your highness," I said, releasing him and giving an exaggerated curtsey.

He responded with an equally ridiculous bow.

It was still hard to fathom that the boy who had been my best friend for years was actually a prince. He'd only told me the truth earlier that summer when he'd forgotten to remove an impossibly expensive diamond pinky ring from his hand. I hadn't believed his story until he returned the next day with an actual crown.

"How's the growing going?" he asked.

I shrugged. "There's nothing very exciting about corn."

He stared blankly at the tiny plant I'd started before he arrived, seeming like he was somewhere else entirely. Running his fingers through his curly blonde hair, he said, "I wish I could trade places with you. No responsibilities or duties, just plants."

I rolled my eyes. He was utterly clueless to what my life was actually like. "I have plenty of responsibilities, boring ones."

"I'd give anything for boring right now."

My carefree friend was not at all sounding like himself. "Phillip, what's the matter?"

His gaze unclouded, and he stared at my face as if he were trying to memorize it. "There's something I need to tell you when you're done here."

I looked at all the rows I had left to do. It was hours of work. "Let me go ask my aunt if this can wait until tomorrow."

Phillip gave a weak attempt at a smile. "Don't tell her it's on my account. Then she'll never let you leave."

There was no use hiding that Aunt Ruth despised Phillip, though she could never give a good reason why.

Our farmhouse was larger than most in the area and had been in the Jackson family for generations. It had been cobbled together like an insane wooden puzzle that should not have fit together yet somehow did. Above the fireplace hung a painting of my great, great, great, great, great Grandfather Abe Jackson who had first learned how to manipulate plants and make them grow faster. The rumors that he'd gotten his ability from giants were, of course, preposterous. Everyone knew that giants were a myth.

The scent of lentil stew greeted me from the front door, giving me a good idea where I could find my Aunt Ruth.

Aunt Ruth was a tiny woman with wiry hair that now had more grey than the red we both shared. She and I had been the only survivors of the plague that had ravaged our kingdom five years ago. We never talked about the eleven graves we dug that year.

"That smells good," I said.

"Thank you," she said. "Is there something wrong? I wasn't expecting you back inside for a few more hours."

"Not exactly," I said, "but I was wondering if I could finish up tomorrow. I have something else that I need to do today."

Not looking away from her task at hand, my aunt asked, "What could possibly be more important than starting the corn?"

A few lies ran through my mind. I could say that my friend Belle needed my help in the library. My aunt liked her. The words were there, but I couldn't say them. "Phillip is here, and something seems to be really wrong. I promise to make up the work tomorrow."

My aunt spun around, mouth hardening into a small line. "You know I don't like that boy or his influence on you."

"Yes," I said, "I know you don't like him, but -"

"The answer is no, and tell him to go away," my aunt said with a dismissive tone. "You have work to do."

"I can do it tomorrow," I repeated. "We're already ahead of schedule."

"Ava Jackson, don't you dare argue with me about this. That boy is trouble, and I've put up with your friendship with him long enough."

She was being unreasonable. "I understand that you don't like or trust him, but what about me?" I asked. "Is your opinion of me so low that I can't choose my own friends?"

"Oh, don't turn into a dramatic teenager now. Just do as I say, or -"

"Or what?" I asked in a rare moment of defiance. "Will you send me away and run the farm on your own? I always do what you tell me to do. I never complain. I'm sorry that I'm not one of your actual daughters. Maybe you would have trusted them."

My aunt turned pale and then red. "How dare you bring them into this. This is that boy's doing. You are never going to see him again."

Something inside of me snapped. "Good luck stopping me," I said and raced out of our home before she could do exactly that.

"Ava!" she yelled, hot on my heel. "Get back here!"

I slammed the front door behind me to slow her down and took off at a sprint across the field towards the place Phillip and I always met.

The earth trembled beneath my feet.

I froze and then spun around to see that my aunt had stopped at the edge of the field. A single moment dragged out for an eternity of seconds until all around me stalks of corn burst from the ground in deadly spears. They grew and grew to an impossible height, blocking out the light of the sun.

My mind performed an insane calculation. Within moments, I was going to be crushed by giant corn.

I raced faster than I thought my legs could move. I could hear my aunt screaming at me to stop, but I knew that if I did, I would die, just like my parents, my sisters, and the rest of my family. Had any of them known Aunt Ruth was capable of this madness?

I barely made it through the corn field before it became my tomb, and I didn't stop running until I was at the cave where Phillip and I had first met years ago after the plague had destroyed my life.

My ragged breathing awoke the sleeping prince.

"Where's the fire?" he asked, and, as difficult as it was to explain, I told what had happened.

"Let me get this straight," he said. "You argued with your aunt, and she responded by attacking you with corn?"

"Giant corn," I amended.

He chuckled. "I would have paid good money to have seen that."

I would have paid to be able to forget it. "Unless she magically shrunk it down, you still can see it."

"No," he said, tossing a pebble at me, "I wish I could have seen the day Ava Jackson finally stood up to her aunt."

"I don't understand," I said, pacing the length of the small cave. "I didn't know plant charmers could do that."

"Me either," he said. "You should ask her about it...once she calms down."

"She tried to kill me," I said. "I don't know that I can ever face her again."

"Maybe she was only trying to stop you and went too far," he suggested. "It could have been an accident."

"I can't believe you're taking her side."

"Whoa," he said, rising to his feet and holding my hands. I tried to jerk away, but he wouldn't let me. "I am always on your side. Want me to have her executed?"

It was such an absurd question that I laughed. "No, your highness, I think that is a little drastic, but thank you."

He squeezed my hands and then let them go. "Anything for you, Firefly."

I hadn't heard him use my childhood nickname in a long time, and it brought me back to the reason we were there. "What did you need to tell me?"

The light left his eyes. "My father is sending me to war."

My mind spun. There was only one war our kingdom was involved in. "The crusade," I whispered, not believing it. "That's suicide. Everyone who goes dies."

Phillip nodded. "The people are angry with my father for the lives lost. He thinks if I go, then they will be appeased."

"So you're what, a sacrifice? That's insane."

Phillip shook his head. "It's brilliant, actually. If I die, then it transforms my father from an uncaring king into a grieving parent along with the rest of the kingdom. And he gets rid of me."

"Why would your father want to be rid of you?" I asked.

Phillip shrugged. "I'm his fifth son. No princess in her right mind would marry me; so it's not like I can add to my father's kingdom."

"You're funny and smart and handsome," I said. "Why wouldn't a princess want you?"

Phillip wiggled his blonde eyebrows. "Ava, are you finally admitting that you are madly in love with me?"

I punched him on the shoulder. "Don't be stupid."

He rubbed his shoulder as if I'd actually hurt him. "Princesses don't care about my personality, and while it helps that I'm not an ugly troll, they want something more significant."

"Like what?"

"Like wealth," Phillip said.

"Princesses are dumb," I said with a huff.

Phillip laughed. "I agree, but unfortunately, marrying one is the only way I could possibly survive this."

I knew that I must be desperate because the next words out of my mouth sounded crazy. "What about Sleeping Beauty?"

Phillip looked at me in surprise before saying, "They also have to be real with an actual kingdom."

"I think she is," I said.

"Why?" he asked.

"Remember my friend, the one who works at the library?"

"The smart one?" he asked.

"Yes, Belle has a theory that the lost Kingdom of Anur is Sleeping Beauty's kingdom. She even told me where she thinks it is and why no one has been able to find it."

"And you believe her?"

"Belle is never wrong."

Phillip stared off into the depths of the cave as if it held the answer. "I guess I don't have anything to lose."

"That's the good news," I said. "The bad news is that to get to the kingdom, we have to go into Thrush Forest."

Phillip's eyes grew wide. "The last time my father sent men in there, they didn't return."

"What choice do we have?" I asked. "We have to try."

We both turned towards the mouth of the cave at the unmistakable sound of a shotgun being cocked. It was Aunt Ruth, looking disheveled and angrier than I'd ever seen her. "She isn't going anywhere with you, your highness."