If this had been a proper fairy tale story Shea would have had a magical companion animal or wise mentor by now. Or a horse, at the very least. But it wasn’t, and she was still tromping through and increasingly muddy forest alone. She tucked a stray hair back into her bedraggled braid and concentrated on dreaming up new and interesting comebacks for the next time a dying messenger told her ‘this must get to the king!’

Of course she couldn’t have said no, snappy retort or not, because the message really did have to get to the king. She knew that because she’d opened it (just to make sure); she figured the king wouldn’t be too upset since she could hardly be expected to have taken the messenger’s word. She’d learned long ago not to trust nobility’s word for what ‘had’ to get done. At least this time her tomato plants would die for a good reason.

This time Shea Re Diggan was preventing a war…