Thomazine was born heiress to the lands and fortune of the Heron dynasty, and she was born under a dark and troublesome star Orphaned at ten years old, growing to womanhood in a family of cousins, these were the young years when she met the headstrong Francis, the years when they both dreamed of the mystic unicorn But the sweep of the times was against them Francis was banished and imprisoned, Thomazine forced into black and loveless wedlock, and the onrush of beating drums and naked steel heralded the turbulent years of England's Civil War