Ariadne shook her head again, a piece of her hair falling over her face. "My pack was wiped out in a fire when I was ten," she said, trying not to feel too sad about it. As it was, she'd already broken her own rule not to cry: When Anakin killed Dean. But in her own way, she liked to keep her feelings in check. "I only survived by a weird bit of luck."

And an-all-too-typical fight with her mother. There was that too.

"So," she said, shrugging one shoulder, "after that, I went to live with my Aunt Lysia, who was the royal translator in the court of Princess Amanda Harkin. I was her apprentice."