Prologue
The First Rule of the Garden
The garden was not meant for children.
Certainly not for a scowling seven-year-old princess in a satin dress two sizes too tight, and especially not for the son of a servant with dirt on his knees and a stolen pear in his hand.
But fate, it seemed, did not care much for rules.
Alariel had run from her lessons—again. The tutor had droned on about trade treaties and posture while her back ached and her fingers itched to move. Now she stomped through the hedgerows behind the east wing, ignoring the frantic calls of the guards far behind her.
She didn’t know where she was going, only that it was away.
The garden here was overgrown, less tended than the royal courtyards. Moss crept over the stones. A cracked marble fountain whispered to itself under a curtain of ivy. The silence was perfect—until a voice interrupted it.
“You’re going to kill the daisies like that.”
Alariel froze.
She turned, slowly, narrowing her eyes at the boy crouched behind a half-dead hedge. He looked about nine—maybe ten. Taller than her, skinny, with tanned skin and black hair tied in a rough knot. His tunic was too big and patched in three places. His ears peeked slightly out from his hair, just sharp enough to mark him for what he was.
An elf.
“And what would you know about daisies?” she snapped.
He shrugged. “They don’t like getting stomped. But you probably don’t care.”
“Do you know who I am?”
He stood up then, slowly, and gave a slight, mocking bow. “Of course, Your Royal Most-Important Highness.”
Alariel blinked. No one—no one—spoke to her like that.
And then, without warning, she laughed.
He looked startled, and maybe a little proud. She tilted her head. “What’s your name?”
“Talen,” he said. “Talen Cinderleaf. My mum works the seamstress hall.”
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said, but her tone lacked conviction.
“Neither are you.”
She thought about that. Then she walked over to him, smoothed her dress, and sat down in the grass.
They sat like that for a while. Not talking. Not needing to. The garden grew quieter around them, as if it too was listening.
That afternoon, they made the first rule of their secret world: no titles, no bowing, and no lies.
Years later, she would still remember that moment — the defiance in his voice, the dirt on his hands, the first time someone had looked her in the eye and seen not a princess, but a person.
And she had let him.
