Lady Carliss and the Waters of Moorue: The Knights of Arrethtrae

Excerpt. (c) Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 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–untilthe 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 likely as a good deed. Carliss knew her father was concerned for the safety of her mother and the five children, but she sensed something noble in this man’s peculiarity. When her father denied the knight’s request, Carliss felt the ache in her spirit swell to the size of a chasm that seemed to swallow her. She watched the fellow turn and leave the farm. But when he was a short distance away, Carliss could not contain herself. She ran after the man, ignoring the warning calls from her father and mother. “Who are you, sir,” she panted when she reached him, “and why did you come here?” The knight gazed down at Carliss from his steed and seemed to know the ache that called her to him. “I am Sir Orland, a Knight of the Prince, and I come to share His truth with you. Would you like to hear it?” That was the day Sir Orland shared the great story of the King and the Prince with Carliss and her family. By evening, another family had been added to the Prince’s cause, and Carliss felt the ache in her spirit fade away. She closed her eyes and envisioned her perfect snowflakes in a perfect kingdom with a perfect King. Joy filled her heart, and so did her zeal for service to the Prince. On that day, Carliss became Lady Carliss, noble daughter of the King. She and her family donned robes of a nobility that far transcended the caste nobility of the kingdom. Sir Orland also opened their eyes to realities both glorious and potentially frightening. For as the King and His Son transformed in their minds from myth and legend to reality, so did the King’s enemy, Lucius, and the ongoing battle for the kingdom…a battle in which they now had a significant role. Over the course of the next two years, Sir Orland found many opportunities to come and train the family in the ways of the Prince and in the sword. Then, when Carliss was nearly seventeen, she and her brother Koen began training at a nearby haven for the Knights of the Prince. Carliss was commissioned a year after Koen, and her father arranged to have her mentored for a time under Sir Orland. Now, at the age of twenty, Carliss was truly a knight of great skill by her own right. By the kingdom’s standard, she was still a quiet, plain, and simple girl. On matters of the King and the Prince, however, a fiery spirit rose up stro