Deerskin

From the Newbery Medal–winning author of The Hero and the Crown, a princess flees her home to escape her father''s abuse and finds an unexpected new life.Princess Lissla Lissar is the only child of the king and his queen, who was the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms. Everyone loved the splendid king and his matchless queen so much that no one had any attention to spare for the princess, who grew up in seclusion.But the queen takes ill of a mysterious wasting disease and on her deathbed extracts a strange promise from her husband: "I want you to promise me . . . you will only marry someone as beautiful as I was."The king is crazy with grief at her loss, and slow to regain both his wits and his strength. But on Lissar''s seventeenth birthday, two years after the queen''s death, there is a grand ball, and everyone present looks at the princess in astonishment and whispers to their neighbors, How like her mother she is!On the day after the ball, the king announces that he is to