How do you overcome a broken heart?
For generations, the magic trees have supported the kingdom of Linden. The wood is prized in kingdoms everywhere for its special properties. It's one of the few good things King Christopher inherited from his late father, the evil King Vincent.
Vincent also gifted Christopher a lack of confidence. The only person who believes in Christopher is Queen Lily. When he loses her and their only child, Christopher's grief threatens to undo him. The love of his life has returned to the fates, and now all he wants to do is spend his days mourning her.
Then word comes that the trees are dying, and no one knows why.
Despite the urge to hide in the castle forever, Christopher meets the mysterious Keeper of the Wood to find out what's killing the trees. The answer demands he go on a quest with old friends and new allies. Along the way, they'll try to save hostages and mend another broken heart by putting it back together piece by piece.
Through it all, Christopher will fight to conquer his doubt and prove to his people, the memory of Lily, and himself that he deserves the crown.
How do you overcome a broken heart?
For generations, the magic trees have supported the kingdom of Linden. The wood is prized in kingdoms everywhere for its special properties. It's one of the few good things King Christopher inherited from his late father, the evil King Vincent.
Vincent also gifted Christopher a lack of confidence. The only person who believes in Christopher is Queen Lily. When he loses her and their only child, Christopher's grief threatens to undo him. The love of his life has returned to the fates, and now all he wants to do is spend his days mourning her.
Then word comes that the trees are dying, and no one knows why.
Despite the urge to hide in the castle forever, Christopher meets the mysterious Keeper of the Wood to find out what's killing the trees. The answer demands he go on a quest with old friends and new allies. Along the way, they'll try to save hostages and mend another broken heart by putting it back together piece by piece.
Through it all, Christopher will fight to conquer his doubt and prove to his people, the memory of Lily, and himself that he deserves the crown.
In our heart of hearts, where we let few people enter, at some point we’ve all wished someone dead.
Does it sound harsh to say this? I suppose some might consider it outrageous. Because to wish someone dead would mean we’ve gone past the point of revenge and simply want that person gone so our own pain can end. It also means we’ve lived through every level of that pain first, hoping things would change, wishing it away. Wishing someone dead means you have nothing left, that your soul is empty and your heart will never be the same.
I’m something of an expert on that.
All of us have experienced the searing pain of betrayal by someone we once trusted. A friend who knew our deepest secrets. A guardian who vowed to nurture us. A love who promised us the sky above the sun and the dust between the stars.
The betrayal I experienced was the last kind. Vincent, the prince of Linden, was impatient to take his throne. He believed the power I possessed would help him, so he leaned close and whispered promises in my ear. He told me I meant more to him than everything, including the kingdom. He lied.
When I discovered his dishonesty, the cut ran so deep I lost my heart and haven’t regained it since.
But this story isn’t just mine. This story belongs to all of us whom Vincent betrayed. Because he did go on to become king, and he ruled Linden with spite and distrust of anyone who questioned him. He married for political gain and had a child so Linden would stay within the family. Then he betrayed his son.
He belittled his son, Christopher, telling him he would never have the courage, the strength, the heart to rule Linden with any significance. He set himself on a pedestal so high that when the boy tilted his head back to look up, he fell and landed in a large hole of self-doubt.
When Christopher came of age, Vincent died in an accident. He should have had that accident much sooner. Not for my sake, you understand. I no longer had my heart; what did it matter to me what happened to Vincent? But I did wish that those under his rule would have gained their freedom from his tyranny sooner.
Christopher took the throne, and for the beginning of his reign the people of Linden held their breaths. Would the new king also work them beyond the state of exhaustion? Demand more in taxes than they could give? Would King Christopher taunt and disparage those under him as his father had done before?
He did not. Many Lindeners suspected he had suffered as they had, albeit as the heir to the throne. In quiet dinners together or crossing through the wood, when the people of the kingdom thought they were alone—even though I could hear them—they confessed how much they pitied Christopher. He must have endured worse than they did.
The new king didn’t have much experience at court, but he knew how his father led. When the senior-most councilor placed the crown on his head, Christopher chose in that moment to lead his people in stark contrast. Where Vincent showed anger, Christopher showed kindness. Where Vincent extracted a person’s life blood, Christopher requested his people’s hard work. In every way, he endeavored to be nothing like his father.
This included the woman he married. When Christopher’s mother was alive, she didn’t voice her opinion about how the evil king ruled kingdom and castle. She wasted away, sick in heart and health, until she died.
Christopher treated his wife with a courtesy his father had not extended his mother, and the new queen became more than a figurehead to rule by his side. She became a trusted confidante. A friend. She gave back to Christopher every ounce of self-assurance the evil king had stripped from him.
She believed in him without any hesitation.
It took time for him to learn to trust, but Christopher returned the love tenfold, a hundredfold, to his new queen. People rarely saw one without the other. Under Vincent, he cowered like a plant left too long in the sun; with his wife, Christopher unfurled like a nourished tree to stand tall. I watched all of this from afar. It was too late for me to find my heart, but Christopher found the light of his and would do right by Linden and its people.
This is the power of love. It moves us to do things greater than we could imagine and redeems us. When Christopher needed someone, desperately, to believe he could rule a kingdom that had grown suspicious of its monarch, the new queen stood by his side to show the people—and him—that she supported him. The people regained their trust in the king and the queen, in the monarchy’s ability to keep them safe and fed. The story seemed destined for a “happily ever after.”
And yet…and yet.
Something has changed. I can sense it in the way the trees have slowed their growth. I am the Keeper of the Linden Wood, it is true, but my power will only last as long as I do.
This last fact—the revelation of it—makes me wonder whether I should have gone looking for my heart after all.
King Christopher has a broken heart. Instead of celebrating the birth of an heir, both is beloved wife, Queen Lily, and their child, who drew not a single breath, are taken by the fates. In his grief, Christopher withers in lonely agony. He cannot even bring himself to leave the castle to attend the funeral procession. But Christohper is not the only one whose heart is breaking. Geraldine, the Healer who had been responsible for the birth of his child and the care of Queen Lily, is stripped of her badge and banished back to her hometown, though the deaths of the royals are through no fault of her own. Her son, Alistair, is largely non-verbal, but highly intelligent and loving, and who suffers ridicule from other children. Then there is Lemuel, who for years now has been fighting to obtain the earnings owed his family which the previous King Vincent wrongfully withheld. How much heartbreak does it take to break the very heart of an entire kingdom? Linden is known for its magical lumber. When a mysterious disease starts causing the magic of the wood to fail, the whole kingdom is put in jeopardy.
In the Heart of the Linden Wood is a story about overcoming our own heartaches to stay true to our obligations not only to ourselves, but to our communities, loved ones and world at large. While set in a fantasy world, the trials and tribulations of that world are as real as the trees outside my own window. The strength of a community is shown in how it rebounds and rebuilds after a hardship. For Linden, the deaths of Queen Lily and the royal heir make for a backdrop through which we see Christopher, Geraldine and others endure the aftermath of their loss. Especially evident is the lesson that sometimes our actions betray even our best intentions.
Christopher strives to be the opposite of what his tyrant father was as a King. Still, his life of privilege has still made him blind to some of the suffers of those less fortunate than he, and he has to learn to understand that what he puts forth as being best for the kingdom might actually only be what’s best for the few. When he sets out with Geraldine, her son and his trusted friend, Sir Martin, to save the Linden Wood, he learns that being the King he strives to be means acting with consideration, rather than haste, and taking the time to listen to ideas we may not want to hear. As a ruler, he learns that he has to discern between his instincts to protect himself from further suffering from his instincts to protect his people.
Similarly, Lemuel and the revolutionaries that storm the castle may have a noble goal: they seek to be paid what they are owed. Instead of peaceful negotiation and strategic action, however, their desperation leads them to commit treasonous acts, including putting the royal family and Councilors in shackles. In Lemuel, we see the dangers of allowing our own conflicts to spill over and blind us to the conflicts of others around us. We also see what happens when rash decisions, while intending to resolve said conflict, actually only make things worse, instead.
In the Heart of the Linden Wood was slightly slow to start, but the poignant lesson and morals contained within the book, along with the heartfelt, relevant plights of the different characters combined to form a wholesome, exciting and worthwhile read.