PROLOGUE
The delicious smell of baking, spiced, moist, and rich, wafted up to Amice's nose. She felt her mouth water and reached out a hand, surreptitiously, to take another cake.
Aunt Alina grinned from across the table. “I saw that, Miss Amice.”
Amice chuckled. Her aunt didn't mean to tell her no. Beside her, Amice's mother glanced at Alina, brow raised.
“Alina MacConnoway – you might not interrupt my tale.” She was grinning though, and Amice, eight years old and surprisingly perceptive, knew she meant no harm.
“I might not,” Alina agreed tranquilly. “But I did.”
They both laughed.
“Now, where was I?” Lady Amabel asked. Amice's mother, the lady was vital and red-haired, like Amice, but with a chiseled face and green eyes. She looked around the table.
“You were at the bit where the giant tries to stop the prince. The one who's going to marry the princess,” Brodgar, Amice's brother, supplied helpfully.
“Oh. Yes. That's right,” Amabel answered. “Now, this giant was not the smartest fellow you might meet, and when he tried to stop Prince Cameron, what he forgot was...”
Amice let the words wash over her, carrying their images: The handsome prince, the angry giant, the beautiful lady. She closed her eyes, imagining the hero. In her thoughts he looked like Hal McTae, the son of her father's ally. Hal was three years her senior, tall and chestnut-haired with a striking face. Amice thought he was the most beautiful creature she'd ever seen.
Hal is my handsome prince.
She looked up to see Alina's eyes on her across the table, and looked quickly down. Her aunt's expression made Amice feel nervous. She wasn't watching any of the other children, not even her own daughter, the fair-haired and lovely Leona. She was looking straight at Amice, who shivered.
Is she vexed? What did I do? She looked back up at Alina, who still watched her. Her eyes were unfocused now, and Amice bit her lip. Auntie Alina is a seer. Maybe she's seeing something.
Amice didn't have much of an idea of what that meant. Her big sister Joanna had explained it once: Auntie Alina could see the future, or some of it.
“All the time?” Amice had asked, confused.
“Sometimes,” Joanna had explained. “If it is given to her to see it. It comes briefly and it's impossible to tell when it will strike, or whose future you will see.”
Since Joanna was also a seer, Amice believed her. Now, her mother shifted a little, reaching for her drink, bringing her thoughts back to the present.
“And so,” her mother said, swallowing a sip, “after all his trials and challenges, the prince wed the lovely Princess Pearl, and they were happy until the end of their days.”
Leona sighed. It was a romantic story and her violet eyes shone at the thought. Amice felt impatient with herself. She'd gone and missed the best part!
“Tell another one?” she asked hopefully.
Amabel laughed. “Tomorrow, sweet one. It's almost time for bed.”
Protests went round the table, and Amabel chuckled. “We'll tell more tales again tomorrow. I promise. Now, it's late. We have to go to bed.”
Alina shepherded the children out, heading out of the warm turret room and to the bedchambers. Amice, Brodgar, Conn, Leona, and little Alf. Joanna was somewhere else – at sixteen, she was too old to sit with the children after dinner.
As Amice thought of Joanna, she glanced up at Alina. She remembered the strange look her aunt had given her.
“What is it, Amice?” Alina asked as she bent to lower Alf onto his bed. “You look worried.”
“Were you...were you seeing, back then?” Amice wanted to know.
Alina sighed. “Yes, child. I was. I saw something in your future.” she straightened up tiredly.
“In my future?” Amice felt a mix of pleasure and alarm. “What, aunt? What will happen?”
Alina sighed. “I don't know. It was not clear. I should say nothing now. In a few years, perhaps, when you're older...”
“I'm eight now,” Amice protested hotly. “I'm growing up. You can tell me.”
Alina chuckled. “Very well. Just wait a moment. Conn!”
“Yes, auntie?”
“Come and keep your brother company. The rest of you, to your beds! And not a sound.”
Alina turned to her when they'd gone.
“I foresaw something unusual, my child,” Alina said, turning back to her. Her smooth brow furrowed in a frown. “There was sea, sky, and a stranger. I feel your destiny might take you far from home. And toward someone...someone other.”
“Other?” Amice had big eyes and they grew even bigger at the wording.
Alina shook her head impatiently. “There's something different about him. He's...I can't see what it is,” she sighed. “All I can say is that he will be different to anything you would expect.”
“Oh.” Amice frowned. It was a strange prophecy. “What does he look like?” she asked, intrigued.
Alina laughed. “That it is not revealed to me to see, my dear. All I can say is that he is handsome and you will love him with all your heart. Now. To bed.”
Amice wanted to ask more, but she knew her aunt's matter-of-fact ways and knew that was all she was going to get out of her.
As she lay in her bed that night, drifting off to sleep, she found her mind full of sea, sky, and the strange, somehow-unusual man she would one day marry.