Sheila was once heir to the throne of Khaal. But in her thirteenth year, the court's wizard slew her parents and assumed command of the castle. Sheila had seen Faelyn's treachery with her own eyes -- she'd seen him twist the life from her mother before running into the night, leaving her own best friend Rane to his dark mercy.
In the gutters of the city, she takes up with Teague, a street magician and the legendary leader of the resistance against the crown. Against Faelyn. For ten long years, she learns the tricks of his trade, learns to fight beside him, and when the time is ready, she stands with him to take back what's rightfully hers.
But the wizard she finds in the castle's parapet isn't who she expects.
In the darkness of the stairwell, the stone step feels cold against Sheila’s fevered cheek. With a small groan she turns her head slightly, now resting her forehead against the stone. Her side burns where Alain’s sword pierced her skin, and she holds her right arm across her stomach, her hand pressed fast against the wound. Her hand has grown sticky with her own blood.
Lifting her head, she can see the door above her etched in light that seeps from where the wood doesn’t quite meet the stony frame. If only I can get there, she thinks, hefting herself on her left arm and curling her legs up beneath her. An arrow had pierced her leg, and though she has managed to break off the shaft, the tip still lies lodged within her muscle and it cuts deeper with every move she makes. But she has to reach that door.
She was thirteen when she last climbed these same stairs, the hidden entrance to her mother’s chambers. Her childhood friend was with her then, a lively young girl called Rane.
Rane, half faery in a world that no longer believed in such creatures.
It was Rane’s idea to sneak up to the queen’s rooms, to see what sort of business was conducted there, far from the king’s eyes. Sheila had heard the rumor of her mother’s affair with the court’s wizard, but she passed it off as idle castle talk.
But Rane needed to know.
A shudder of disgust runs through Sheila now as she remembers the frightened look on her mother’s face, the gleaming knife in Faelyn’s hand, the deft motion that twisted the blade and the life from her mother’s limp body. Afraid, she had run, leaving Rane in her haste to get out, to get away, to hide before he killed her as well. With her mother gone, Sheila was the rightful heir, but she couldn’t bring herself, at that age, to assume such a position.
Now, as she struggles to reach the same door through which she had fled ten years ago, the pain of the memory rivals the pain racing through her body. She doesn’t know which is worse -- the death of her mother, or the fact she left Rane behind.
