“And to think, all this time, so great a keep has been within five days ride of Father’s throne, and out of our hands for more than a century,” said the Princess Aurora Deschain, her gentle voice a cacophony of echoes in the vast, cavernous halls of the fallen castle.<br/><br/>“Indeed, your Grace,” replied the Old Wolf, Sir Herrek, captain of the Kingsguard, and warden of her ladyship’s safety.  “It was scarce two months prior that your Father was able to retake Harrowedall from the Daggohedran.  We hardly expected to find it. . .well, as you see it.”  A bear of a warrior with hair of salt and pepper, and full beard on a face solid like a stone carving, and eyes wary and watchful, Herrek took his role seriously, hand on his sword even in the abandoned halls.<br/><br/>“As you see it” referred to a castle built in the style popular a century or more ago, with hallways broad enough to march three mounted men aside, redoubts and halls large enough to fit entire villages within, soaring buttresses and leering gargoyles, spinnerets that nestled among the sky. . .abandoned.  Undwelled, for time enough for the masonry to crack and the dust to accumulate inches thick, and the spiders to weave their webs in the halls of ruin.<br/><br/>The Princess of Valaria, Aurora Deschain, was a girl of seventeen, almost eighteen, by acclaim of many noted mavens in the parlors of womankind as the fairest issue from the seed of King Kadan, eldest heir to the Sun Throne of Valaria.  Her glory, great as any crown was the hair of gold and silver that might have been spun by the sun and moon together of their light.  Never seen in the line of Deschain for generations, remembered only in dry tomes of the lives of princes long dead, said to be the mark of divine favor of that House.  Her face, her form, her eyes of sky blue, the sweet scent of her, like flowers of spring born before the last frost, made more than one poet maddened for desire of her, and spoke of the divine image of woman the Sun god surely must have intended.<br/><br/>Aurora moved past the murder slits in the wall, towards a portcullis with gaps between the rusted bars wide enough for the slender girl to slip between, where Herrek had to squeeze and grunt and call for her to wait.<br/><br/>“Then I am the first Deschain to walk these halls since. . .”<br/><br/>“Since Balthazar the Black died here, your Grace,” Herrek replied hurrying to follow around a corner, lest his charge be left out of his sight.  He did not believe she would stray far; he carried the torch, and they were far from windows, but the Princess was young, and foolish, and more than apt to wander in the dark.  “Your Grace, I must once again protest this.  Your father saw the state of Harrowedall and wisely decided not to linger.  It will take months of work by hundreds of volunteers to make it a suitable residence for the royal family again, and what’s more, our trip here will delay us by as much as a week to join your father’s pavillion.”<br/><br/>“Yes, Sir Herrek, I know.  I merely wanted to see what we have warred these past five years for,” said the Princess as she descended a flight of stairs, her slippered feet leaving deep imprints into the dusy floor.  “So many men died. . .for this?”<br/><br/>“It was once your family’s seat of strenght, my lady.”<br/>“And I was once a babe that could not speak or reason, but all things change, Herrek.”<br/><br/>“As you say, your Grace.”<br/><br/>Aurora frowned as the pair came to a door at the end of a hallway, a great arched frame bearing the holy symbol of the Son, whose wooden portals had long since fallen.  “The chapel?”<br/><br/>“Most like,” Herrek said, peering within.  The air was colder in this place, colder even than stone, colder than it had a right to be, as if some force ate all of the warmth that could gather within, greedily devouring and never satisfied.  “I do not like this place, Princess.”<br/><br/>“You like nothing I do that is not in perfect accord with Father’s wishes.  It happens that I will one day be Empress, and, if I deign retain your service, you will answer to my will, when it comes.”<br/><br/>“When it comes,” replied Herrek, turning away to hide the hurt the careless words had caused.  He’d devoted his life to the Deschain, and did not deserve Aurora’s scorn.  “But for now, you are the Princess, and your father sits the Sun Throne, and he would not approve of our visit here.  I must insist that we leave.  Now.”<br/><br/>Aurora’s fists gathered, for the tone of Herrek spoke of no room for refusal.  She believed he would drag her, if she rebelled against him at this stage, and it infuriated her to be thwarted, even so slightly.  “Very well, Sir.  I would ask for a moment’s privacy, to pray in the chapel of my greatfathers.”<br/><br/>“You may have your moment, Your Grace.  I will be waiting.  Do not be overlong,” Herrek replied.  He lit a torch in a sconce in the wall, and marched away from the chapel, leaving Aurora behind.<br/><br/>The Princess waited until her guardian was out of earshot, and walked in the chapel.  She could not see, through the dust, the lines etched into the floor, the blasphemous characters drawn over the sacred sigils of Sun and Moon, that defiled the holy place, could not know the atrocities that had once been done on the altar to darker beings than she dared imagine, could not know the dangers of careless words in such a place.<br/><br/>She knelt down before the altar (though she did not touch it, the dust would cling to her like a shroud) and let out a deep, girlish sigh.  “Great Lord of Light,” she began.  “I cannot bear it any longer.  Father never means for me to sit the Sun Throne.  He will rise up Amon, even if a steward must keep the Empire until he takes his thumb from his mouth and crying when his porridge spills.  It should be mine!  I am eldest!  Show me a way out.”<br/><br/>Her fists, delicate and small and soft as newborn baby’s flesh, pounded atop the stony surface of the altar, brushing a cloud of dust into the air, making her cough and blinding her with the ashy taste of its staleness.  She turned away, covering her mouth into her sleeve as she tried to catch her breath.<br/><br/>It was then that she saw it.  Beneath the altar, a glint of some color besides the grey of neglect and dust; a hint of red in the faint flicker of the torch.  Aurora reached between the intricate carved feet of the centerpiece, slender fingers reaching for the colorful fleck, just out of reach.  Her kuckles scraped against an ornamental carving, but she was able to brush it with her fingertip, nudge it closer.<br/><br/>It was a pendant, a bloodstone of ovoid shape, smooth and opaque, red as rubies, on a chain of gold.  “What a strange thing to find,” she said.  The treasures of Harrowedall had been taken long since, even if no lord of the Daggohedran had made it their home, and a bloodstone was a rare gem indeed, even if this speciman was rather plain.  The blood of her fingertips make a smudge upon the surface of the gem, which she wiped away upon her handkerchief.<br/><br/>“Princess?” Herrek had come back.  Auora’s hand closed over her treasure, and she stood, not guiltily in a way that would have been as good as a confession, but with a carefully considered nonchalance.<br/><br/>“I come, Sir,” she replied.  In her heart, she cursed Herrek for shepherding her like a sheephound, cursed her father for denying her that which was hers by right, cursed even the Sun for refusing to answer her prayers, but her face was as sweet as the joy in a child’s smile.<br/><br/>The pair retraced their steps, to rejoin their caravan and the many musketeers and pikemen, handmaids and rangers, that made up the Princess’ traveling party.