The Steadfast Princess: Princesses of the Magic Continent, #1

By Monica Rosehill

The crown princess of Pheonen has finally returned from her tour of the kingdom with a woman in tow. She declares this woman is her intended. While Princess Sanura knows that this surprise intended is not to be trusted, her older sister will not be so easily convinced. Worse the royal magic Sanura has always trusted to protect her doesn't seem to register this newcomer as a threat. Now Sanura and her younger brother will have to figure out why this suspicious woman has really come and stop whatever plot is brewing before it's too late. If only the intended's intimidating guard would stop following Sanura and watching her every move.

'The Steadfast Princess' is the first book in a young adult fantasy trilogy set within a fictional continent. It contains magic, humour, minor LGBTQ+ characters, and romance. While the books in the trilogy are set on the same magical continent, each book follows a different princess and can be read as a standalone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Monica Rosehill
• Release date: Mar 6, 2024
• ISBN: 9780473705077

Monica Rosehill

I am a webcomic artist and author in my early twenties living in New Zealand. By day I am a mechanical engineer working towards a PhD. By night I'm usually sleeping. But also during the day I am working on several YA books and season two of my webcomic.

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Monica Rosehill

The Steadfast Princess

Princesses of the Magic Continent

First published by Monica Rosehill 2024

Copyright © 2024 by Monica Rosehill

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Monica Rosehill asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

First edition

ISBN: 978-0-473-70507-7

This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

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Contents

Continent Map

1. Prusha’s Return

2. A Time for Listening

3. A Slip Up

4. Being Followed

5. The Royal Marketplace

6. Glass and Giggles

7. Prideful Pirates

8. A Matter of Trust

9. The Tsunami

10. Reaching an Understanding

11. Running Out of Time

12. The Truth

13. The Binding Ceremony

About the Author

Also by Monica Rosehill

Continent Map

1

Prusha’s Return

Icouldn’t run. Running was unseemly. I was a princess and princesses could not run. There were four hallways, a spiral staircase and a courtyard to go before I could reach my destination. I had to traverse them at the pace of a sand slug. I had to glide elegantly down the hallway because I was a princess. It didn’t matter if a princess’s older sister had just gotten home from journeying the country. It didn’t matter that the sister kept extending her trip and should have gotten back half a season ago. It didn’t matter if the princess missed her sister and a reunion was long overdue.

Princesses. Could. Not. Run.

Princesses could not run.

Princesses could not run.

Oh, but sometimes they wanted to.

No, I couldn’t. I had to be patient. I’d waited this long. I could wait a little more. I’d get there eventually. Just one step after the other. Slow but steady.

I heard laughter before I saw my little brother sprint past me.

Runesh, I called after him. Don’t run! If I couldn’t, then he couldn’t either. He was a prince.

He glanced over his shoulder at me with his cheekiest smile. His golden eyes glittered and his jewelled circlet lay askew in his deep purple hair. He didn’t say anything to me. When he turned away and continued running, that was all the reply I needed. All I could do was watch the light fabric of his tunic billow behind him. One end of his neck wrap seemed to taunt me with a wave as he disappeared around a corner.

What a brat.

I wished I could be a brat too.

Instead I checked the placing of my own circlet and neck wrap as if his dishevelment would somehow affect my own appearance. It was unnecessary. Not so much as a single purple hair was out of place. That didn’t stop me from reaching up to check again a moment later. I had nothing else to do on the long march through the palace. Well, nothing else except cheerfully greet everyone I passed.

Good morning, Sasha, I said, giving the servant my third princess smile as she walked by with a bundle of laundry. It was my stock standard pleasant princess smile.

Good morning, Princess Sanura, she greeted, and bent in a slight curtsy.

If there weren’t always so many people around the palace, then I’d be able to run. I held in a sigh as I began my slow descent down the spiral staircase. On my journey I greeted an attendant from the kitchen, Washon, bringing lunch to my mother’s quarters. I greeted Tensha, one of the cleaners. I greeted the footman Nusht as he sped across my path.

Everyone else was hurrying around. They had lots to do with my sister’s arrival. I had a lot to do as well. Yet, I was never allowed to hurry.

Almost there. One more hallway to go, then I’d reach the courtyard.

I felt millions of little beads rolling around in my stomach as I continued my gentle pace. I wanted to see my sister desperately. I’d been waiting so long. Every time I thought she would return, it was just another messenger to report that the crown princess was extending her trip. It was tradition for one of the royal family to tour the country every full cycle of the seasons. On the first day of Starson¹, the windy season, one of us would set off. We took turns after we became old enough to make the journey. I had done the trip twice. Prince Runesh would take his first tour next year. My elder sister, Princess Prusha, had been away on her fourth.

Usually a tour would take no more than twenty days. Thirty, on a slow tour. My sister had been gone for ninety days, three fourths of our windy season. It was an unfathomably long tour. Pheonen was not that big. There were not 90 days of sights to see. I would know. And not only had I missed her presence, but her responsibilities had fallen to me and Runesh while she was away. Mostly to me.

Now today, long overdue, she was finally home.

I exited the palace into the courtyard and spotted my sister’s carriage on the other side of the open space. Runesh was already standing in front of it, waiting for our sister to appear. I embarked on the final stretch of my journey. So close yet so far.

As I reached my brother, one of my sister’s pink-slippered feet emerged from the carriage. I smiled pleasantly as she climbed down to meet us. Her brown skin was a shade darker than mine now, and her hair a lighter shade of purple than I remembered. I attributed both differences to the intensity of the desert sun. Even in the windy season, the sun was a powerful thing in Pheonen. I imagined she spent much time under it on her journey. But when she beamed at the sight of me and Runesh, I noted that her smile was exactly as radiant as I’d recalled it while she was gone.

My, Runesh, Prusha said. Did you grow taller while I was on tour?

Our brother offered her a happy shrug in response.

And, Sanura, she turned her beam on me, I see you have handled the city as brilliantly as you always do when its governance falls to you.

I have done my best, I said. As I always do. But it is good to see you returned.

It is good to be returned, she said, punctuating her statement with a bubbly nod. Then she embraced each of us in one of her magnificent hugs. I sighed, content. I had missed Prusha’s hugs. As a princess, I had very few people I could reasonably hug and Prusha’s were so wonderful that even Runesh accepted them. When I tried to hug him, he would slither away.

Once Prusha was satisfied with the amount she had squeezed each of us, she stepped back to take us in once more. I missed you both very much.

We missed you too, I assured her on behalf of our brother as well.

Prusha laughed at Runesh’s continued silence. This was rather typical of him. Is that right, Runesh? she asked. Did you miss me?

He looked at her for a moment and tilted his head as if he were pondering the question. Somewhat.

I wanted to elbow him, but instead I said, Don’t listen to him. Moments ago he was running through the palace to greet you.

Prusha giggled as Runesh scrunched his nose at me for outing him. I almost scoffed at his reaction. As if Prusha didn’t already know how much he missed her. She always knew. He was aware of this.

I am flattered, Runesh. The intensity of my sister’s beam seemed to grow as she stepped back towards the carriage. And I have the most shining news, she continued. It is the reason I extended my trip. I met someone who I couldn’t bear to part with. Someone I have brought back as my intended.

An intended! Prusha met someone to become bound to. I had to hold in a squeal. If she had sent word that someone had sparked her interest, I would have cursed her absence far less. At long last! I thought my sister would never find an intended. She’d always paid no mind to the men who tried to win her attention. I wondered what he would be like. What kind of man could have finally drawn my sister’s notice? I looked to the carriage as someone else emerged.

It was not a man. It was a woman. She had a unique look about her. Her dark blue hair was typical of us Pheonish people, but the rest of her colouring, the green of her eyes and the lighter shade of her skin, told of mixed origins. She was not as pale as someone from across the western border, a country called Atheronia. Nor did she have the taller and stockier frame of the Atheronians. Instead her slightness and narrow green eyes told of Medakins origin. Medakis was the country to the south.

Even if she wasn’t so distinct, I would have recognised this woman instantly. How could I forget the face of my former friend, even if it had been almost eight full cycles of the seasons since I had last seen her? What was she doing here? I told her to never come back. She’d promised I’d never have to see her again. Yet, here she was.

This is Nakina, my sister introduced her with a distinctly Medakins name. It was not the name I had known her by. My intended. The words reverberated around my head as Prusha continued her introductions. Nakina, these are my younger siblings, Sanura and Runesh.

Runesh kept his distance but gave the woman a nod. I was too busy letting my feelings grow muddy to offer a welcome of my own. This was wrong. This was so wrong. How had my sister become intended to a liar? How had this woman fooled Prusha? Fooling Prusha should have been impossible.

I looked to my sister for any kind of explanation. All I got from Prusha was a look of incredible pain. Of course she would know of my negative feelings. They were upsetting her. I was upsetting her. I had to explain myself to her as soon as possible, but I couldn’t do it here in the courtyard. There were far too many onlookers, including the very woman I wanted to discuss.

Another person close to my sister’s age stepped out of the carriage and came to stand beside the woman. He looked a clear-cut citizen of Medakis, with beige skin, prominent lips, an angular face and a thick head of grey hair. I noted the sword secured at his hip. Him, I did not recognise, thankfully. The last thing I needed was another such shock. Not that there were many other people whose appearance would shock me so. Only… No, now was not the time to be thinking about him.

And this is Nakina’s guard, Prusha said. They are both refugees from Medakis. Nakina was one of the nobles who fled here seasons ago. But her father hailed from Pheonen.

Lies. Lies. Lies.

It was a believable lie, given their obvious Medakins features and the current disarray of Medakis. None of us had any desire to reach out to the king of Medakis, so there was no way to corroborate the story either. But no matter how believable it was, I knew it was untrue all the same. This woman had been living in Pheonen for much longer than a few seasons. How was my sister being fooled by these people? I burned with cool anger as I considered what these liars could be doing here.

Sanura, Prusha snapped at me. I met her eyes, my expression as calm as it had been the entire exchange.