1 Prologue

It was night again. The Rothania palace lay in silence and it was in two parts.

The most obvious part was a hollow, echoing quiet, made of things that were lacking. If there had been a wind it would have sighed through the trees, set the palace's sign creaking on its hooks, and brushed silence down the road like trailing autumn leaves. If there had been a queen and even a handful of men inside the palace, they would have filled the silence with conversation and laughter. Today was the day of the festival if there had been music... but no, of course, there was no music. In fact, there were none of these things, and so silence remained.

The second silence was not an easy thing to notice. If you listened for an hour, you might begin to feel it in the wood parquet floor underfoot and in the rough, splintering barrels behind the door to the chamber. It was in the weight of the black stone hearth that held the heat of the long-dead fire in the chamber. It was in the slow back and forth of a white linen curtain rubbing along the balcony. The curtain fluttered and a man who stood there took a sip from his golden stemware that gleamed in the moonlight.

The man had true-blond hair, blond as honey. His ocean-blue eyes were deep and distant and he moved with the stubble certainty that comes from knowing many things.

The palace was his, just as the second silence was his. This was appropriate as it was the greatest silence of the two, wrapping the first inside itself. It was deep and wide as the autumn's ending. It was heavy as a great river-smooth stone. It was the supreme ruler who might put anyone on the bed of roses.

"Your Majesty!" the guard cried as he knocked on the door, "we have been attacked!"

The glowing butterfly led them into an unknown. They took a step further in- than two or three steps- always expecting to feel the woodwork against the tips of their toes. But they couldn't feel it.

"This is..."

Lane completed her as they stared at each other, "Impossible."

Every fibre of their being was screaming for them to leave. They started running in the opposite direction. Their minds swarmed with questions as one Casey took a peek behind and made eye contact with the wolf's head. Big mistake.

"Get them!" the wolf whispered.

A drop fell on her hand, she looked up. The ceiling was leaking. "I think you have made a mistake. We are not who you claim us to be."

"There's no mistake" The old Ivor looked closely at her pendant. "The auspicious flower enamel pendant can only be carried by the daughters of that bloodline."

The summer took them far from home. Lead them to their destiny. Power corrupts all who desire it. Only one who has the will to resist it. The twins should destroy it all.

"ATTACK!!"

"For ROTHANIA!"