Lady Carliss
 
She seemed an ordinary enough girl on the outside—a quiet, plain, and simple girl—but within, Carliss was as unique and complex as the snowflakes that sometimes fell upon her father’s farm when she was a child. On those special days, Carliss would take a dark cloth outside and catch the intricate flakes so she could gaze upon them and marvel at their perfection and beauty. She would close her eyes before they melted and try to hold each exquisite detail in her memory for as long as possible.
 
As she grew out of the delightful and carefree world of a child and into the reality of the kingdom, Carliss began to realize that just as the beauty of her perfect flakes had melted away, so had the perfection of the kingdom where she lived. In her spirit, she knew something was amiss, and this is what made Carliss so unusual. She ached for something she knew did not exist and yet believed it should.
 
This yearning was something she could not quench, and it stole away the silliness of youth before her time.Those who knew her thought her a bit peculiar, a bit too intense and serious—certainly not like the other girls. But then, Carliss had never aspired to be like the other girls. What she did aspire to was something she couldn’t quite name—until
the day her world changed.
 
It happened when Carliss was fifteen. A man dressed in the garb of a knight arrived at their farm. He was quite short and unimpressive in appearance. He asked for room and board for a night, and he offered to pay a good price in exchange.
 
Carliss’s father hesitated, for he had learned to be wary of all men in a kingdom where treachery was as l...