Prologue
I was born to silk-draped halls and golden cradles, or so the story goes. A princess at my first breath, swaddled for a few short months in the soft brightness of a world I cannot remember. He tells me my first lullabies were sung beneath a ceiling of painted constellations, that my mother’s hands were warm, and my father’s laughter echoed like sunlight on stone.
But memory is a fickle thing. It clings not to the life lost, but to the one that came after.
I only know pine needles beneath my feet, with no idea what marble floors might feel like. I grew up chasing the wind across the high ridges, learning its moods as other children learned court manners. The mountains carved me the way kings carve thrones—firm, unyielding, with purpose. My cradle was carved from ancient trees whose memories surpass our own, my lullaby became the howl of wolves prowling the dark.
Tallon, my guard, my only family, whispered the stories of a kind queen, a fair king, and a devoted prince. He told me stories of marble floors, golden chalices, and rooms of joy and music. But I never asked him why, if that was my family, if that was where they lived, why I was here. I cannot help but wonder if fate knew I would never wish for a life of lace and fabric, but rather to learn the heartbeat of the forest. I cannot imagine being anything but wild and free. I cannot imagine lullabies of sweet nothings when I adore the howling wolves, I do not envy the life that could have been when the life I have presently feels so right.
Here in these mountains, in our valley, I know what the air tastes like before a storm. I know where every tree root surfaces from the ground in search of the sun. I know the language of shadows, the trust of beasts, and the quiet loyalty of stone.
I may carry a crown in my blood, but my soul belongs to these mountains.
Tallon often speaks of the day we will descend from these heights, to reclaim what was stolen, but I will not go as the princes I should have been, but rather as the wild thing I became.
