Maren grew the way wanted children grow, quickly and loudly and surrounded on every side by people who adored her.
By her first winter she had her father's silver eyes and her mother's stubborn refusal to be told no. She learned to walk by pulling herself up on the leg of Aria's chair in the round room, and the four witches of the circle took turns pretending to be scandalized when she shrieked through their quiet workings. Cress would have loved her, Aria thought often. Cress would have called her a menace and meant it as the highest praise.
"She is going to be impossible," Vael said one evening, watching Maren chase one of Cale's children across the courtyard. "You realize that. She has a queen for a mother, a five-hundred-year-old king for a father, and an entire kingdom that thinks s
