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At sixteen years of age, Jaron Artolius Eckbert III claiainst Carthya A year later, he would go on to en, but the events of this story describe so year

OneJaron described by those who know him?

The answer rarely includes the word “great,” unless the word to follow is “fool,” though I have also heard “disappointet us all killed”

There are other answers, of course

“He was born to cause trouble, as if nothing else could make him happy” My nursee I still believe her early judg over the castle balconies, and a failed atteoat, what could I have possibly done to ?

My childhood tutor: “Jaron has a brilliant h to teach hi he doesn’t think he already knows Which one rarely can”

It wasn’t that I thought I already knew everything It was that I had already learned everything I cared to know fro in the sa I would take a position a his advisors or assu abandoned the idea ofa priest, at the tearful request of our own priest, who once announced over the pulpit that I “belonged to the devils more than the saints”

To be fair, I had just set fire to the pulpit when he said it Mostly by accident

My h I frequently upset him with my inability to live up to Darius’s exae ten, to save my father embarrassment while I was molded into a proper prince overseas

I had no intention of becoly and for one reason above all others: I no longer wished to be the subject of so many conversations

If only life were that simple

Soon after my ship launched across the Eranbole Sea, pirates attacked and the ship was lost I was presumed dead, which was a surprise to me since I considered myself very much alive The second surprise caour so to war

And so I becaain

Yet they did

Mrs Turbeldy, the ed Boys, calledwas beneath me

Master Bevin Conner, the e with a plan to install an orphan boy as a false prince on the throne, called h, but what he didn’t knoas that I was the true prince, now to beco to overthrow the kingdom