Queen Aderyn

In my upcoming Young Adult Fantasy novel Everdream, one of the most important characters spends the whole book sleeping.

Queen Aderyn, young Prince Kynan’s mother, may be Dreaming quietly throughout her son’s quest, but her story is the catalyst for his journey and for a change that will change the face of Everdream and the Wake alike.

Prince Kynan knows very little about his mother.  Since she fell into the Eversleep when he was only five, he has few, though happy, memories.  But beyond his age, there seems to be a hush over the topic of the queen, her disappearance, and the land of Everdream.  His father, King Kedrych, has ordered this silence.

Aderyn was once a commoner.  Kynan knows that much.  Quiet, gentle, and sad, she never fully acclimatized to royal life, but spent more and more time withdrawing into Everdream.  Though she is plain, unremarkable in appearance, almost to the point of homeliness, Kedrych called her his “fair one”.  Kynan still believes that his mother was the only one who truly understood and loved him.

As Kynan journeys on his quest, he grows to know his mother more—and to learn a side of her that he never glimpsed in the Wake.

For in Everdream she had another life and a secret love.  In Everdream she was called the Fairest Maid, the most powerful, talented Dreamer of all.

Kynan might find that the mother he loved was someone he never really knew at all.