Ella balanced her daughter on her lap, while Char sprawled across the couch, their son Prince Evon at their feet.
"Mama?" asked little Princess Kahtri of four years. "Mandy said you an' me an' Evon are 'friends of the Fairies." What's that?"
Her father answered her. "It means you, Evon and Mama have fairy blood in you." He smiled at his wife. "It also means you have very tiny feet."
The nine-year-old heir frowned. "But we're mortals . . . If we have fairy blood, doesn't that mean a fairy and human had to marry long ago?"
Char looked startled. He turned toward his beloved, "Well?"
"Ah," Queen Ella of Frell said, "now that is a story worth telling."

And so here is the story of the human Laeliena of Cyri - and the immortal she fell in love with . . .