Prologue
It was the Queen’s ring he was after. The ring that held the eye of a dragon long ago dead, but was somehow still alive within that piece of jewelry on the Queen’s right hand. Gold band, wrapped around her aging finger, holding a perfectly smooth gem stone a color deeper than emerald green, and when the light of the sun hit the stone- the dragon eye would open, and look about, almost as if scrutinizing it’s surroundings, almost as if it was hunting, still looking for a sheep, or a wolf, to swoop down, put flames to, and eat.
The dragon, it is said, had guarded a kingdom long ago forgot. The last person to have seen the kingdom, which was perched on a small island somewhere in the waters of Cornwall, found himself running from all sorts of dangers. The final task to survive was the dragon that guarded the abandoned castle and walls. The man of this tale had dived into a pool, and as the dragon got up close to the water’s edge to find him, he lashed out with his sword, removing the large flying, fire breathing lizard’s eye, and taking it home as a souvenir.
He fashioned it into a ring for his daughter, and suddenly, daughter became royalty, and that daughter’s royal lineage was handed down for centuries, until Queen Grace of Springborough was seen wearing it.
Nobody believes the story anymore, as stories told for centuries usually are bled of their believability.
The Queen’s cottage was in the middle of the woods. Queen Grace of Springborough had stepped down from the throne years ago when Queen Jenniffer Lishens, her daughter, had begun to bear children. Queen Jenniffer bore three, and so Queen Grace had taken her leave of the throne and politics, and ventured out to a cottage in the middle of the woods of Fortis, lost amongst the trees, but exactly where she wanted to be. She wanted to garden, to read, to watch her grandchildren grow, but more than anything else- the Ex-Queen simply wanted to live peacefully. King Daniel fortified the cottage, making it easy for the Queen to open and shut her doors, but making it next to impossible for anyone to be able to disturb her if she didn’t want it.
That is where she lived; alone, carefree, with the ring on her finger.
