Before the Royal Progress: Prequel to Royal Progress Series

729 years from now, in the "perfect" domain of Hautland, the 26-year-old Buckstop still mourns the death of his wife in childbirth. When his mother presents him with the smart, beautiful, sympathetic Allegra as candidate for his second queen and stepmother to his two children, the way she makes him feel is the answer to a dream. What he doesn't know is that it's the beginning of a nightmare. This 3,900-word narrative is the complete prequel to the Royal Progress Series in which the perfection of the carefully designed domain collides with human nature, greed, and all the other evils that flesh is heir to.