1. the prologue

"I've heard a lot about you," Was something that Morana of House Silvertongue was getting used to by the time she had turned the age of thirteen. "You are as beautiful as the legends say," It was the type of sentence that she would expect someone to say to a woman twice her age, not a small girl who liked to hide behind her mother's skirts whenever someone talked to her. She had always looked to her mother for help, and her mother had always made her feel safe.

She was now eighteen years old without a mother or a home and she still wanted to run and hide when she was told this. She was told this now, as she was presented to the prince of the Red Kingdom. "I've heard a lot about you, Princess Silvertongue." He told her. "You are quite beautiful," She tried to keep her cool and smile and take the compliment, she knew that this was for the good of her people and the survival of her house and nothing more, but the prospect of getting married at such a young age filled her heart with sorrow.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," She told the man in front of her. He was considerably older, with jet black hair that had grey streaks running through it. He was by no means an unattractive looking man, but there was this glint in his eyes that unnerved her to her very core.

'You just have to bite your tongue and survive this,' She thought to herself.

She could do this.

She had to.

For the last few years, she had been growing accustomed to losing too much, but it had lately become something that was too much to bear for even her. House Silvertongue was one of the last houses in Althea that used magic and worshipped the old gods, and the war against magic had become so perilous that she had lost both her parents and her younger sister to it. Her older sister might be dead as well, she could not be sure about that though. Marina was a fearsome warrior and she had been telling herself that she would come back some day, but after a fearsome storm swallowed up the boat that she had allegedly been on, she gave up hope.

That left her and her older brother, and her older brother had been insistent on selling--er, marrying--her to the Kingdom with the most soldiers and the best army possible so that they could eventually bring glory back to their house.

'Bite your tongue,' She reminded herself as she stared into the eyes of a prince that she couldn't even remember the name of. 'You can do this. You can do this. You can do this.' Morana was not ready to give up on her house either, so she was going to tell herself that her brother was right and that this was the best way to bring glory back to her house.

It had to be for what it cost.

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