Title: The Princess and the Maze
Author: A. L. Heard
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: General Audiences
Trigger Warnings: minor character death, period-typical misogyny, violence (non-graphic descriptions)
Relationship: family, forced marriage (attempted)
Character Features: royalty
Tags: fraught family dynamics, mythology inspired, past tense, pov third person omniscient, puzzles and games
Teaser:
In a kingdom past the sea, in a land of wild forests and towering mountains, there was a queen who gave birth to many children. Before the royal home was blessed with a son, a princess was born. According to the ancient laws, the princess couldn’t rule on her own. A worthy suitor would claim the throne through her, but it was left to her to determine how such worth was to be measured.
The princess didn’t want a husband and was capable of ruling alone, but these considerations couldn’t change the law, and so instead she endured encouragement from her family that she should entertain suitors and name the task that, should they succeed at it, would in turn name them the future king. She deferred as long as she could, pleading that she was too young to marry.
Her father indulged her… until the summer she turned eighteen.
Length: 10 pages/2,045 words
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