The story of King Voltor and Queen Emilda had been an unusual one, though it had so far seemed far more efficient that of King Alek and Queen Viana. The King of Water had been instructed to choose a wife, a woman from his list of matches, and the man had not bothered giving the parchment a second glance before dropping his finger on the name of his beloved wife, whom he would come to love dearly. Queen Emilda, in her youth, had been nothing more than a tomboy, a woman who desired no part of a woman’s life. She was as rebellious as her daughter, though she was a fierce warrior. She had been trained by her father, and in itself had been the sole reason she had been on the list of candidates to begin with, not that she wanted to. The news of her picking had come as a shock to her, seeing as n
