Reach for the Stars preview

Dusty steel walls, gray as dark thunderclouds on the eve of a storm. Furniture almost nonexistant, with only a tiny wooden dresser, a tiny wooden nightstand, and a tiny wooden bed to call her own. Decorations? Perish the thought! The walls were as barren as the far stretches of Jurgana. All she had were the bland, verbrose books about other countries in Mondor and their history, and the few picture books she borrowed from other nobles, on the rare occasion she was let out of her room.

 These books were her only company most of the time. Only the stories of girls with fairy godparents to weave them dresses to go to the ball and sweep the prince off his feet, of tiny girls the size of one's thumb escaping arranged marriage after arranged marriage and riding on the back of a bluejay through the sky to find someone just right for her, and of heroes of all shapes and sizes teaming up to take down an evil sorcerer could ease the troubles in the young girl's heart. She often imagined herself as one of these heroes and acted out the part all on her lonesome. Sometimes the guards would come by and tell her to pipe down, but she would always pick up her one man play once they were far enough away. When you had no friends, you just had to make up your own, and play the role for them.

  Not that her father liked any of this, of course. Thought that she should just be seen, not heard. "Princesses shouldn't get any fanciful ideas about the outside world," he always said in that voice that reminded her of three cellos playing deep notes in unison.