The drizzle became a downpour as the barge approached the Water Gate. This gate was the one to which my mother had been brought, in this same manner, eighteen years earlier. I wept, thinking of how she had never left. I was following in the footsteps of many who had been accused of treason and whose last steps from freedom toward death had begun at this exact spot.

"Take me to another gate, any gate but this!" I cried. But the guards stared straight ahead, refusing to hear.

As I stepped from the barge, all strength drained from my legs, which gave way under me. Overcome by terror, I collapsed onto the stone steps, which were wet from the lapping river. I lay crumpled in the rain, unable to go another step. The warders of the Tower sent to meet me stared down at me. I gazed up at them, searching for a sympathetic face. I felt utterly without hope.

Then one, followed by another, abruptly stepped out of the formation, cried, "God preserve Your Grace!" and knelt before me. Immediately others of the warders seized me roughly, set me upon my feet, and ordered me to enter the Tower.

Elizabeth Tudor's teenage years are hardly those of a fairy-tale princess.

Her father, Henry VIII, has beheaded her mother; her jealous half sister, Mary, has her locked away in the Tower of London; and her only love betrays her in his own quest for the throne.

Told in the voice of the young Elizabeth I and ending when she is crowned queen, this second novel in the Young Royals series explores the relationship between a girl who became one of England's most powerful monarchs and her half-sister, Mary Tudor, who tried everything to stop her.