Gabrielle_Johnson_6482

“You must bear a child, Celia. what good is a woman who isn’t a mother? What good is an empty womb?”

“Especially when it’s a foreign womb, like yours…”

It’s not an easy life when you’re watched month after month, when all the blame is placed at your feet for your young husband having no heir. 

Celia Devon Tralhamir, Crown Princess of Havietten, waits every month with hope mingled with fear. 

A child will secure her future. But it will also bind her for life to a husband she neither loves or respects, who refuses to see her abilities. Is that what she wants?

Is she content to prioritise security over happiness, and be a wordless decorative vessel all her life?

Or is she brave enough to try to forge her own path and seize fulfilment on her own terms? Even in a society that cannot recognise individual brilliance in a mere woman.

A sequel to the WEBNOVEL book “Earning the Love of a Princess”, this novel follows another woman born into the Royal House of Devon, trying to fight the confines that threaten to stifle her happiness.

The Loneliest Ballad

29 November, 1357. Westerhaven Palace, Islia

Celia ducked around a thick stone pillar as excited breaths tore from her lungs and made little white clouds in the cold air. It was far colder in this part of the palace than in the wings she usually spent most of her time in. The corridors around her weren't warmly lit with wall torches and the few fireplaces around were cold and unlit.

Which is what made the northernmost halls and passageways the very best places for playing hide and seek.

Celia and a handful of royal and noble children had snuck off that day for a game, far away from their sharp eyed nursemaids. A religious procession in a nearby town meant that many of the palace servants had been granted permission to attend that day. Celia's stern old nursemaid Bridgette was one of them.

Flashback: Come Find Me