If you’ve been around this blog for the past month, you’ll know I’ve been introducing everyone to the main characters from my next book, The Fiery Arrow. This book is the first of a trilogy of medieval adventure novels.

And in case you haven’t been around this blog for the past month *gasp*, here’s the story synopsis.

A newborn medieval country. 

A bow-shooting princess with a prophesied destiny. 

A sword-wielding carpenter’s apprentice. 

Arliss, the sixteen-year-old princess of Reinhold, despises the class boundaries which plague her city on a hill. When her father the king forbids her friendship with the young peasant swordsman Philip, Arliss sets off on a quest to the heart of the land of Reinhold. Little does she know that she will discover an evil more threatening and ancient than she could imagine—and a prophecy that speaks of a fiery arrow.

So far, we’ve met:

• Arliss, the adventurous archeress princess protagonist
• Philip, the peasant swordsman carpenter’s apprentice
• Ilayda, the impetuous semi-royal sidekick

This week, I’d like to introduce you to Arliss’s parents, the king and queen of Reinhold. King Kenton and Queen Elowyn.

Kenton

Kenton has been ruling the clan of Reinhold since he was a very young man. His parents’ early deaths on the Isle of Light rendered him the leader of their clan’s settlement. Thus, when the isle’s long-dormant volcano erupted, he took action and led his people in their flight to the mainland.

Some wonder if they will survive. But Kenton has an unshakable faith that God’s hand is over the clan of Reinhold.

After twelve years, Kenton seems more than right about that. Reinhold’s city upon a hill bustles with life and change and growth. Too much, growth, in fact. The city becomes so packed that one solution becomes clear: build another city. Spread out. Expand. Kenton urges his lords to build another city by the seaside.

But the land of Reinhold is wild. And perhaps the wildest thing in Reinhold is something Kenton can’t dream of controlling: the heart of his daughter, Princess Arliss. While Kenton looks toward the sea, Arliss looks inward, at the unexplored heart of Reinhold.

Elowyn

The flight from the Isle of Light still weighs heavily on Queen Elowyn’s heart, even after twelve years. At the time, she felt everything they had worked to build up was crashing to the ground. Now, she sees the ways their clan has been blessed in the land of Reinhold.

But Elowyn sees other things—things most people don’t. She sees possibilities, predictions. Some say she sees the future.

These visions and realizations are cloudy and nebulous. Elowyn herself can make little out of them. But they all seem to be swirling around her daughter, independent Arliss. When Arliss asks about an ancient legend of a queen who saved her kingdom with a fiery arrow, Elowyn connects the story with an equally ancient prophecy.

Reinhold is changing. Lines are growing, not just between peasants and nobility, but among the king and his lords, the king and his daughter.

Elowyn sees many stories beginning to weave together.