Page 1 of A Valiant Prince

Prologue

“Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.” ~William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

“Mom?”I ask as I knock on my mother’s door.

“Come in, Logan,” she answers from behind the door. I turn the knob and peek inside. My mother is sitting at her desk. She’s got notebooks scattered about and news clippings. She’s working. She’s always working.

“Mom? Will you be taking me to camp tomorrow?” I ask her. She looks up from her desk. She looks sad, but she often looks sad, as though she’s thinking about someone who died.

“I’m gonna try. I’m sorry, but I have to get work done on this story. Nana will take you if I can’t,” she says. I glance at her desk. There are photographs and a locket. The locket is creepy looking. It has an eye painted on it.

“What’s that?” I say, disgust evident in my voice.

She laughs a little and holds up the locket. “It’s a locket, silly,” she says, opening it to show me the empty insides.

“Why don’t you have photos in there? I thought girls put photos in those,” I say.

She sighs. “We do, but this one is special. Someone special gave it to me. Do you know why it has an eye painted on it?” she asks me.

I shake my head.

“A long time ago, people would send each other paintings of their eyes. Historians believe that it was a trend started by a king a long time ago. They are called ‘lover’s eyes.’ It’s a way to help someone remember you,” she explains.

“Why don’t they just give you a photo?” I ask, scrunching up my face because the whole thing is creepy and weird.

She laughs again. “I guess they could nowadays, but this is sort of romantic. Don’t you think?” she asks me. I roll my eyes. My mom always asks me funny grown-up questions.

“Mom, it’s weird,” I say.

“I think it’s beautiful,” she whispers as she carefully sets the locket back on her desk.

“Sure, Mom. I gotta go pack,” I say as I turn to leave. She reaches out and grabs my arm, stopping me, and I turn back to her. I’m hopeful for a moment that she might take me to camp because of the look in her eyes.

“Someday, Logan, you’ll meet the love of your life, and when you do, don’t let anything come between you. Fight for your love. OK?” she says to me.

“Uh, yeah, sure, Mom,” I say.

She pulls me in and kisses my hair. “You have your father’s eyes,” she whispers. I freeze because she so seldom mentions my father. I lean back in her arms and look at her.

“I do?” I ask.

“You do,” she states. I smile. She smiles back and then brushes the end of my nose with her finger.

“You better go pack,” she says.

“OK,” I reply as I skip out of her room, daydreaming about a handsome man with blue eyes.

Chapter One

Ilose track of her quickly. The smoke is thick and blankets the air like morning fog. Water is spraying down from the sprinklers, and I take my shirt off and hold it under one before tying the wet cloth around my nose to keep the burning fumes of the fire from filling my lungs.

I make it up the stairs. The temperature rises, as I climb each stair. When I reach the top, I look toward her room. I run there first, but it’s empty. I walk back into the hallway and look toward the fire in the other wing. She wouldn’t. Shit, she would.

I begin to run toward the fire, fighting the natural urge to run back outside, fighting my instincts that say to run away from the fire, because if my fierce princess ran into it, then I most certainly am going in after her.

I hear her before I see her.

“Daddy!” she yells.

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