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All characters are fictional. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
COVER PHOTO: Courtesy of Pixabay.com
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
LOST IN TIME
BOOKS BY JD ROGERS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Prologue
I was six years old the first time I saw the Cemetery of Would Be Queens. It was a warm summer evening. The sun was low in the sky, casting everything in an orange glow.
The cemetery was located at the top of a hill just north of the Summer Palace. A hill that stood out from the surrounding hills, which were covered with grass, wild flowers, trees, birds, and butterflies. In sharp contrast, the hill containing the cemetery was brown and lifeless. There was no carpet of green grass, no yellow and purple wild flowers, no trees, no birds, no butterflies. Even the warm summer breeze seemed to avoid that lifeless hill.
My mother didn't allow me to climb the hill with her. She made me wait at the bottom with Patera LaCere, Captain of the Queen's Guard. I didn't argue with her, mostly because I didn't want to go up there. The place scared me.
I stood next to Patera and watched as my mother headed up the hill alone. “Who's buried up there?”
“Your mother's sisters. Among others.”
“I didn't know she had any sisters.”
“She had five sisters.”
“And they're all dead?”
“Yes.”
“When did they die?”
“Before you were born. Before your sisters were born.”
“They must've been way older than her if they died before any of us were born.”
Patera didn't say anything. He just stood there and watched my mother walk up the hill.
“How come there's no grass on this hill?” I asked. “Or flowers?”
“Keep watching,” Patera said. “You'll see.”
It was pretty clear that Patera didn't want to answer any of my questions, so I stood silently and watched my mother climb the hill. There were no headstones up there, not like you saw at other cemeteries. As as far as I could see there was nothing up there. That hill was as barren and as lifeless as anything I had ever seen.
When my mother reached the top of the hill, I realized that the place wasn't as barren as I had thought.
“Do you see them?” Patera whispered.
I saw them, looking just like you'd expect ghosts to look, white, transparent, floating above the ground instead of standing on it. There were dozens of them and they were all young and female.
“Who are they?” I whispered.
“Your aunts, and great aunts, and great great aunts.”
“Why are they buried here?”
“Your mother will explain that to you,” Patera said. “When she returns.”
That was the day I learned how the next Queen of Adah would be chosen, through a series of battles between me and my three older sisters, battles which were known in my homeland of Adah as the Princess Wars. Every ghost on that hill had once been an Adan princess, just like me. Every one had lost the Princess Wars.
***
Fourteen years later, my mother passed away and my sisters and I began our version of the Princess Wars. Actually, it began an hour before my mother died, when I had a vision of my oldest sister, Bedonna, running her mammoth broadsword through my heart. Naturally, I didn't stick around to see that happen. I slipped out of the palace and headed west on horseback. My goal was to win the support of General Dacus and the Army of the West. I knew that General Dacus didn't like or trust Bedonna. He knew that she longed to go down in history as a great conqueror, no matter whose blood she had to spill.
I reached the Army of the West only to discover that General Dacus wasn't in control. One of his commanders, Trager Selis, had tossed General Dacus in the dungeon and proclaimed himself King of the Western Hills. Turned out he was being controlled by a powder witch.
I managed to kill the powder witch only to be drugged by a man she brought with her, a man from the lands located on the other side of the desert. That man was Edgerton Hooks and he was Chancellor of Vassa. His queen was dying and she needed an heir. Not just any heir. She wanted a princess, and as luck would have it, I was the first princess to cross Edgerton's path. That was why he kidnapped me. That was why he was taking me back to Vassa. And why he took the time to teach me the Common Tongue, not to mention the history of Vassa and the countries that surrounded it.
What he didn't tell me was that his queen had enemies, people that wanted her dead. People that wanted me dead. I learned that the hard way, when assassins attacked us, and then again when men posing as river pirates burned our ship.
One of the people that wanted me dead was the Duke of Genese. A man who was supposed to be an ally. A man I had just dined with. A man I just had a vision about. A vision that warned me that when dinner was over, and I had retired to my suite, he was going to try and kill me.