Prologue
The queen paced her chamber, walking slowly and deliberately with her right hand on her protruding stomach. Her nervous tension seemed to emanate from her entire frame. Even in this advanced stage of pregnancy, she was the very picture of beauty. She was tall and graceful, with long ebony hair and flawless skin. However, her face radiated a silent fearfulness, and her soft dark eyes were obscured by worry.
After several minutes of pacing, she slowly eased herself into an ornately-carved mahogany rocking chair. She used one foot, clad in a silk slipper, to set the chair into a delicate swaying pattern as she hummed to herself. The melody was pretty, though a little coarse. It seemed to be more of a commoner's ditty than the lullaby of royalty. The notes were high and clear, more suited to a reed whistle than to the queen's faint alto undertones.
The door opened quickly, nearly banging against the stone wall. A man appeared in the opening. He was tall and handsome, though not in a striking way. It was more that his features were even and strong, and his bearing was proud.
"Idrielle," he said. "Are you all right?"
The queen nodded, straightening a little.
"And everything feels . . . normal?" the king prodded.
Again the black-haired woman nodded, then added, "Yes, but it was around this time when I last . . ." She choked back the next words, her eyes filling with tears.
Everyone in the land knew that the fair queen's previous child, a boy, had suddenly been lost in this stage of her pregnancy. The court physicians couldn't explain the occurrence; Queen Idrielle was young and in perfectly good health.
Although she had felt no signs of the baby being anything less than perfectly healthy, she couldn't shake away the feeling of dread that threatened to suffocate her. As she had never delivered a live child before, she couldn't determine if it was motherly instinct that told her something was wrong or if she was simply allowing her imagination and her fear of losing this child as well that caused her to tremble so.
Two days later, it was announced that the queen had given birth to an infant daughter. The girl was dark and beautiful, the complete likeness of her mother. But even in her first days, it was easy to see that the child was fragile. At the age of two months, it was announced that the infant had died. The queen was heartbroken and the entire kingdom was thrown into mourning.