How would you feel if you thought that you were a princess, lived the life of a princess, and were taught all the things a princess needs to know everyday for the first 16 years of your life and then one fateful day all of a sudden you're told that you're only the standin princess so that the true princess won't get killed? That's what happened to Princess Nalia...I mean Sinda in this book. One day she's the princess happily hanging out with her best friend Kiernan, and the next day she's taken to her aunt's house. She's never met her aunt and she's never lived in as poor circumstances as her aunt does. Sinda has a very hard time adjusting to her new life. It doesn't help matters any that her aunt really wants nothing to do with her. She doesn't seem to like Sinda at all and eventually discloses that it's because of her mother. Her mother ran out on her father when Sinda was just a few days old and her aunt has never been able to forgive her. But when Sinda accidentally discovers that she has magic in her blood, she knows that she must go back to the capitol and see if she can learn to use it and if she can make her own way and fit in somewhere. I really enjoyed this book, there were lots of twists and turns in the plot that I didn't see coming!