Excerpt: Swan Prince

The histories flooded past her view and rose to her fingertips. She was in the War of the Three Kings (all of which had the same name), to then flutter on by to the Ascension to the Thrown by The First Jermaine, and continued further and further into the past till the outside world faded entirely out. It was just her and the story of what had been, and the infinite silence that stretched between. Yvette stopped momentarily on the history of torture, amusing herself with the poorly drawn images, before delving onwards to the Battle of LeMarc. Yvette knew that the nagging feeling in her gut was her intuition telling her she was right to assume that there was The Important Figure located within the pages of the battle.
It could be doubt, egged her pessimistic logic, that was stirring her intuition. Yvette waved her hand in front her face to rid herself of such thoughts and silenced her logic. She didn’t need it at the moment to taint her esteem.
The battle unfurled before her, captive in the prison of faded yellow paper and staunch black letters. The beginning flew past on a blur of words and a flutter of paper, she only needed a certain aspect of the battle, and the beginning was superfluous. She was looking for The Man, a specific spectral figure who clung to the shadows and moved like a wraith. He had to have been there, she knew his black figure had blemished the battlefield from the corner of her eyes. Unfortunately it had been years since the last time Yvette had covered the Battle of LeMarc and then he had been a blimp. But he had been there.
“A woman such as yourself should fain be reading a book such as that,” a voice interrupted and shattered the battlefield before Yvette.