The Forest of Ryylyn is a place of legendary danger: bandits, wild animals... as well as magickal beings and possibly even Gates to other worlds.Sixteen-year-old Karana can vouch for at least the first three. She was on her way to a betrothal when her caravan was attacked by robbers and... things that certainly didn't seem human. Her mother hid her in a secret compartment of their carriage, and miraculously she wasn't found.But now she's the only survivor and the King's Road that they were traveling on seems to have vanished...Can Karana actually make her way out of the dreaded Forest and back to civilization... before she either starves or is found by other inimical creatures?Meet Karana before she became a squire in this prequel to A Not-So-Sacrificial Maiden: Book One of the Knightess of the Realm.