Chapter 1

I once stood in the snow for three days, begging Alexander to marry me.

Back then, he said, "A princess? You were lucky to be born into royalty."

Later, I went to the border for the common people and ended up helping him. When I stood in court receiving honors, he asked me with red-rimmed eyes if I could turn back.

I touched the Starstone Pendant at my waist and smiled. "General Hayes, my heart now belongs to Everland."

The world said I had gone mad, first for a man, then for the sake of the realm.

Only Edward knew I was not mad. He taught me how to steady my sword hand. He showed me how to piece myself back together.

And finally, my sword pointed toward something far greater.

*****

I, Charlotte Everly, was the Princess of Everland.

At this moment, I was standing on the stone slabs outside Hayes Manor, snow swirling down and settling on my lashes, forming tiny crystals.

My feet were numb, but I held myself upright, staring at the tightly shut crimson gate.

Inside, Alexander Hayes, the man I'd loved for ten years, was there.

"Your Royal Highness, please, let's go back," Grace pleaded, her voice thick with tears as she held an umbrella over me. "You've been here for two hours. If you keep this up, you'll hurt yourself."

I stayed silent, stubbornly refusing to look away from that gate.

It was my sixteenth birthday, and it was also the first time I ever petitioned my father for something. I asked to marry Alexander.

My father was furious. He slammed his cup down. "Nonsense. You're the Princess. If he wants to marry you, he should be the one begging."

I knew it all. Alexander would never come to ask.

He was a young general. At fifteen, he went to war with his father.

At seventeen, he led a solo raid three hundred miles into enemy territory to claim the enemy commander's head.

At nineteen, he was promoted to Brigadier General in Everland.

His heart belonged to distant horizons, his ambitions to the battlefield. How could he ever be willing to be bound by a princess's hand?

So, I came to beg him.

"Your Royal Highness," the butler of Hayes Manor opened the door for the third time, bowing with a troubled expression. "General Hayes said he's out drilling his troops at the training field and won't be coming back today."

Snowflakes fell into my open palm, their chill piercing straight to the bone.

"Then I'll wait for him to return from training," I said, my voice so calm that I was taken aback.

The old butler let out a sigh, shook his head, and shut the door once more.

Grace finally broke down, sobbing, "Your Royal Highness, why put yourself through this? Everyone in Brighton knows how much you care for General Hayes.

"If he wanted you, he'd have come to the Palace to ask for your hand ages ago. Why let yourself be humiliated like this?"

Humiliated? Maybe that was it.

The noble girls of Brighton whispered behind my back, saying I was desperate for Alexander, that I'd thrown away all royal dignity.

They mocked me for being lovesick, for being foolish, for being a princess who was willing to lower herself so much.

But they didn't get what I really thought.

Alexander was seven when he came to the palace as my elder brother, Lucas Everly's study companion. I first met him in the Royal Garden when I was five.

I was chasing a butterfly, and ended up falling into the pond. He jumped in after me, pulled me out, and ended up swallowing half the pond himself. Coughing, he told me, "Hey, little girl, be more careful."

The sunlight that day was perfect. His hair was plastered to his forehead, dripping wet, and his eyes sparkled like ripples on the water.

From that moment on, he was the only person I ever saw.

For ten years, I studied military strategy because he did. I secretly practiced horseback riding and archery because he trained.

I begged my father to let me attend lectures at the Royal Academy because Alexander was there.

I thought, if I kept at it long enough, he'd finally see me.

It was at last year's Thanksgiving Day party at the palace that I finally mustered the courage to stop Alexander in the corridor and offer him the present I'd spent three months making.

He glanced at it but didn't take it. Instead, he said, "Your Royal Highness, my ambitions are for the world beyond these walls. I have no heart for romance."