On the morning she turned eighteen, the sun struck her face through the window, warm and bright, and she hated it. She pulled the blanket over her eyes and burrowed into the dark. Night was hers. Mornings belonged to someone else. The blanket ripped away. Gemma stood over her, red braids swinging, holding the covers like a prize. Gemma was her handmaiden and her only real friend inside these pale stone walls. "Happy birthday, Princess," Gemma said, grinning. "You can't hide from your own party." Althea groaned and pressed her palms over her eyes. "Give it back." "Your father waits in the dining hall." Gemma tugged her upright by the wrist. "He's been waiting. You know how he gets." That woke her. Her father, King Charles, did not wait for anyone. If he stood in the dining hall for his daughter, something had changed. Gemma laced her into the pale blue gown, the one with sheer sleeves and a fitted bodice. She worked the buttons in silence, then paused at the last one. "You're quiet," Althea said. "You're never quiet." Gemma smoothed the skirt. "I heard the kitchen talk. About your birthday. About your mother." She would not meet Althea's eyes. "I shouldn't say more." "My mother died when I was small." Althea turned to face her. "I do remember her but only pieces." "I know." Gemma's hands twisted together. Althea's chest tightened. She had spent her whole life with a single fact about her mother, and now Gemma looked at her like even that fact was cracked. She wanted to press harder. She wanted to shake the truth loose. But her father waited, and only he could answer. She walked the warm candle lit halls. Dragon banners hung along the walls, red on pale stone. At the dining hall doors she stopped and breathed. King Charles stood by the long table. His fur cloak hung heavy on his shoulders. He did not sit. He did not smile. On the table lay a cake, and a small wooden box. "Althea," he said. "Sit down. There is something I should have told you years ago." Her legs felt strange as she sat. He pushed the box across the wood toward her. "Your mother came from far away. Farther than you know. Everything you believe about where you come from is only half the story." Althea's hands went cold. "You said she died." "I said what I could." His jaw tightened. "Open the box." She lifted the lid. Inside lay a dragon shaped pendant she had never seen, It was hers, and it meant nothing to her, and that was the worst part. "What is this?" she whispered. "Yours," her father said.

Althea slept badly. The pendant lay on her pillow all night. In the morning she held it to the window light. The dragon had tiny scales carved into the metal. Its eye was a chip of red stone. It meant nothing to her, and that was the problem. It was her only thread to a mother she barely remembered. She had to find her father again and pull harder. She found King Charles alone in his study. He stood over a map, one gloved hand flat on the table. His fur cloak hung on a chair. He looked older without it, and tired. He did not look up when she entered. "You gave me a riddle, not an answer," Althea said. She set the pendant on the map. "Tell me what it is. Tell me where she came from." He stared at the small dragon. For a long moment he said nothing. "I have carried that question longer than you have," he said. "Your mother wore it the day I met her. She never explained it. She said her people would know it." "Her people." Althea's throat went tight. "So they exist. Where?" "Far. Beyond the mountains, past lands I have never ridden." His jaw worked. "I know only that the pendant was a mark of who your mother was to them." "Then I must find these people," Althea said. Her voice cracked. King Charles finally looked at her. "I know one thing more." He turned the pendant over. On the back, worn thin, was a shape she had missed. A castle. "She drew this once. She called it home. I never learned its name." Althea traced the castle with her fingertip. It was rough under her skin, real, a place that stood somewhere. Her father could not name it. But it was carved, and carved things could be found. "Someone knows it," she said. "A trader. A mapmaker. Someone who has seen this tower." "Althea." He caught her wrist, gently. "You are eighteen now, you are to be finding a husband." She pulled her hand free. "Give me this father just this and when I return I will do as you ask." He let her go. That was answer enough. He had nothing more to give her, and he knew it. Althea took the pendant back and closed her fist around it. Her father had emptied his knowledge onto that table, and it came to two things: a mother's people beyond the mountains, and a castle with no name. It was not enough to reach them. But it was enough to start looking. She left the study with a new goal burning in her chest. She would find someone who knew the castle.