Ariel Slick writes original fiction including short stories, novels, and memoirs to spread the joy of imagination and creativity. She also helps clients achieve their fiction writing goals with her ghostwriting skills on Upwork.com and Guru.com. Although she has  worked as a freelancer for three years, she has been dedicated to the craft all her life. Her fiction focuses on themes of love, justice, and magic, and her most popular works include romance and fantasy romance. 

What would make a girl, terrified of everything, go into the woods? Knights chasing after her, for starters. All Elaine wants is to stay in her small village forever, baking bread with her family. All that changes when she discovers that she is one of seven girls with the gift of magic. Elaine must leave behind her family and flee into the deep, dark woods where anything and everything can happen. Only guided by a talking fox, who may not be who he says on the surface, Elaine battles thieves, murderous plants, and magical creatures of all sorts. She will discover her powers and why they matter: to dethrone the evil king.  Will she be brave enough to embrace her powers?

Valient

Weeks passed, and everyone stayed at the castle, helping Alicia to get acquainted with the ins and outs of being queen. Although the former queen had been evil, the kingdom was on the verge of panicking when they heard that there was a new queen. Even though they rejoiced that the old one was gone, there was a brief torment of activity throughout the kingdom, as thieves and petty criminals took advantage of the power change. 


Alicia quickly clamped down on illegal activity. She knew that she had to present a strong front if they people were going to respect her. 


And there was so much to do. There was taking inventory of all the resources of the kingdom, taking stock of the quality of the soldiers, finding new streams of income, pouring over ledgers and listening to endless advice from her many advisors. At one point, Alicia became so fed up with meetings that she stood up at the end of the last one, took Elaine by the hand, and they rode into the forest, just the two of them. 


Chapter 78