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Young Countess Meliara swears to her dying father that she and her brother will defend their people from the growing greed of the king. That promise leads them into a war for which they are ill-prepared, which threatens the very people they are trying to protect. But war is simple compared to... read more

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Quotes edit see section history

  • “Why is it the songs all end with the good people winning, but in life they don't?”
    Oria
  • “They don't make songs when the good lose. They make more war chants against the bad. So there won't be any songs for us.”
    Meliara
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • “If more people recognized the difference between friendship and mere attraction, and how love must partake of both to prosper, I expect there’d be more happy people.”
    Highlighted by 61 Kindle customers
  • “One doesn’t lose a self, like a pair of gloves or a pin. We learn and change, or we harden into stone.”
    Highlighted by 47 Kindle customers
  • despite how entertaining certain stories were, at the bottom of every item of gossip there was someone getting hurt.
    Highlighted by 38 Kindle customers
  • He moved slowly. First, his hands sliding round me and cool light-colored hair drifting against my cheek, and then softly, so softly, the brush of lips against my brow, my eyes, and then my lips. Once, twice, thrice, but no closer. The sensations—like starfire—that glowed through me chased away all thoughts save one, to close that last distance between us. I locked my fingers round his neck and pulled his face down to mine.
    Highlighted by 38 Kindle customers
  • Memory warps time, as it does the sights and sounds and smells of reality; for what shapes it is emotion, which can twist what seems clear, just as the surface of a pond seems to bend the stick thrust into the water.
    Highlighted by 34 Kindle customers
  • Who in the universe ever halts when the enemy tells them to?
    Highlighted by 32 Kindle customers
  • Candlestick, meet heart. “A kiss.”
    Highlighted by 29 Kindle customers
  • “Then let me hear my name from you, just once, before we proceed further. My name, not any of the titles.” “Vidanric,” I said, and he kissed me again, then laughed.
    Highlighted by 26 Kindle customers
  • So let me end with the wish that you find the same kind of happiness, and laughter, and love, that I have found, and that you have the wisdom to make them last.
    Highlighted by 26 Kindle customers
  • she flailed bravely into adventure not because she wished to figure as a hero, but because she was determined to battle for right, even if she struggled from day to day to define just what “right” might be.
    Highlighted by 24 Kindle customers
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Setting & Locations edit see section history

First Sentence edit see section history

THE BROKEN SHUTTER IN THE WINDOW CREAKED A warning.

Table of Contents edit see section history

Prologue
Chapter One - Chapter Twenty Two
Epilogue

Series & Lists edit see section history

This is book 1 of 4 in Crown and Court. (standard series)

Preceded by A Stranger to Command, and followed by Court Duel.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Sherwood Smith (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books
Country: USA
Publication Date: 1997
ISBN: 0152016082
Page Count: 224

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