Eilis ONeal - The False Princess  

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Ive been waiting for this book, my first book, since I was about three. But without a great many people, I could never have written and whipped it into good enough shape for you to hold now.

Thanks to many teachers over the years, including Mrs. Waleska, Mrs. Scribner, Mrs. Victor, and Mrs. Sellers, all of whom encouraged a shy girl to write. Thanks to the Tulsa City-County Library, for hosting a young writers contest that gave me confidence. Thanks to Fran Ringold, the best boss imaginable, who encourages me in all ways. Thanks to my friend, Quin Swiney, who faithfully listened to everything I ever wrote as a teenager.

Thanks to my agent, Craig Tenney, and the folks at Egmont USA, especially Elizabeth Law, for taking on and believing in a new writer.

And finally, thanks to my first readers: punctuation goddess Diane Burton; continuity stickler Lisa Wellinghoff; my unfailingly supportive parents, Helen Beth and Johnie ONeal; and my wonderful husband, Matt Smith. I mean it when I say that, without your ideas, sharp proofreading eyes, and supporteven when Im being neuroticthis book would not have happened.

EILIS ONEAL (her first name is pronounced A-lish) is the managing editor of the literary magazine Nimrod International Journal. She started writing at the age of three (though the story was only four sentences long). She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with her husband, Matt, and two dogs, Nemo and Zuul. The False Princess is her first novel. You can visit her online at www.eilisoneal.com.

CHAPTER ONE

The day they came to tell me, I was in one of the gardens with Kiernan, trying to decipher a three-hundred-year-old map of the palace grounds. We were sitting on a stone bench, the delicate roll of fabric lying between us. Instead of looking toward the gardens, however, we faced the gray wall that separated the northernmost edge of the palace grounds from the streets of Vivaskari.

It cant be there, he was saying. Look, Nalia.

I glanced up from the map to follow Kiernans finger, which pointed at the expanse of wall in front of us. Once he had my attention, he jumped up from his seat on the bench and strode toward the wall. He rapped his fist against it, then winced comically. I rolled my eyes. See? he said. Theres nothing here. Are you sure, oh princess wise and stubborn, that youre reading it properly?

I sighed in frustration. He was right. We had examined this section of wall for over an hour, searching for any cracks or indentions that might indicate a secret door, all without success.

Were where it says we should be. At least, where the part that I can read says we should be. I tugged a hand through my hair, pulling a few of the dark brown strands loose so that they trailed against my neck. Its those markings along the bottom. Ive looked and Ive looked, but I cant find anything that even comes close to them. They arent any modern language I know, or even any ancient one. Which was irritating, since I knew four modern languages well, bits and pieces of six others, and enough of five ancient tongues to at least recognize them. But these runesI could think of no better word to describe the scratchy markingswere completely baffling. Not that I had asked anyone else about them, not even the librarians who should have been the maps keepers. It was a mystery, one Kiernan and I had discovered, and we were determined to figure out the answer by ourselves.

They could say anything, I continued. They could say, Do the opposite of everything youve just read. After all, the location of the King Kelmans Door is supposed to be secret.

We had been trying to find King Kelmans Door since the snowstorm last winter that had trapped the entire city indoors for days. Though I would have enjoyed sitting in front of a fire in one of the palace halls with a good book, Kiernan chafed at being kept inside. And since I was his best friend, finding ways to help him expend his boundless energy had generally fallen onto me.

So we had spent most of the four snowbound days exploring the palace, which, being more than six hundred years old, had enough interesting places to keep us busy for forty days. Kiernan liked the armory best, where he could examine the weapons of deceased kings and queens, and where we found a tiny hidden recess in the wall behind the shield of my great-great-grandfather. Inside the recess had lain a dagger, no longer than my hand from wrist to fingertip. It was quite plain and, since we couldnt imagine that anyone had missed it during the past hundred years, Kiernan had kept it.

It was in the library, though, that we made our most exciting discovery. After two days of exploring, I had felt a strong, almost overwhelming need to read something, anything, and I had been determined to spend at least an hour in the palace library. Kiernan, though able enough when it came to books and learning, had little true patience for sitting and reading. Still, he had followed me, protesting all the while. When I told him that he didnt have to come, he only shrugged and came after me anyway. That wasnt strange, though. We were best friends; we did everything together. He dragged me into scrapes that I would never have considered getting into otherwise, pulled me from my shell of shyness and reserve, and for my part, I made sure that he read a book every once in a while.

I had wanted to look at a book on the history of Thorvaldian magic. The particular volume I wanted, which covered a span of some five hundred years but contained magical theories now considered out of date, was shelved in a tiny room in the very back of the library, tossed amid a collection of moldering scrolls and maps. Even though I lacked any magic myselfno member of the royal family had possessed magic for four hundred yearsI had always been fascinated with it anyway. Not that I had as much time as I would have liked to devote to it; there were always more pressing things that a princess needed to study. But I read what I could, even when I didnt understand some of it.

I was sitting at a low table placed beneath a window, trying to make out some of the more arcane phrases, when I heard a sudden crash and looked up in time to see a shower of dust waft out of the small room where I had found the book. I glanced around, sure that a librarian would come running to investigate, but none did. So I hurried into the room to see Kiernan standing ankle-deep in a pile of scrolls and books.

I was just looking, he protested before I could say anything. They fell on their own!

Scowling at him, I gestured to the pile. Help me clean this up before Torvoll gets here. Torvoll was the palaces head librarian, and a man with very particular ideas about the treatment of books, even those no one had touched in years.

We worked quickly, eyes on the door, and had replaced all but three items when I paused. One of the scrolls had fallen open, the brittle string that had held it snapped in its crash to the floor, to reveal a drawing of the palace grounds. At first, I only glanced at the writing surrounding the image, but something in it snagged my eye, and when I looked more closely, I had to gulp to swallow my gasp.

Put those up, I ordered.

Kiernan, who was holding the last two books, shoved them onto the shelf. What is it?

Ill tell you in a minute, I murmured. My legs felt shaky with the discovery, and I hoped that Id be able to make it out of the library without falling down or tripping on anything. Just hurry. Then I tucked the mapdrawn on a roll of fabric rather than paperunder my arm and darted out of the tiny room.