Love and Justice

By Kristine Kathryn Rusch

The Princess—once named Cinder Ella—murdered. The Prince missing. The King demanding justice. Only the sheriff knows that justice means destroying the kingdom. Can he do it? Can he convince the King to go along?

"Rusch is a great storyteller."

—RT Book Reviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Jan 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386146193

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award. Publications from The Chicago Tribune to Booklist have included her Kris Nelscott mystery novels in their top-ten-best mystery novels of the year. The Nelscott books have received nominations for almost every award in the mystery field, including the best novel Edgar Award, and the Shamus Award. She writes goofy romance novels as award-winner Kristine Grayson, romantic suspense as Kristine Dexter, and futuristic sf as Kris DeLake.  She also edits. Beginning with work at the innovative publishing company, Pulphouse, followed by her award-winning tenure at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, she took fifteen years off before returning to editing with the original anthology series Fiction River, published by WMG Publishing. She acts as series editor with her husband, writer Dean Wesley Smith, and edits at least two anthologies in the series per year on her own. To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com and sign up for her newsletter. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, krisdelake.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com). She lives and occasionally sleeps in Oregon.

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Love and Justice

Love and Justice

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

WMG Publishing

Contents

Love and Justice

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About the Author

Love and Justice

Let me explain the difficulties:

1) I’m a sheriff. No title. I own land, but I work for the palace. I keep the peace and keep the peasants in line. Occasionally I investigate servants at the castle, but that’s all. No power, really, except that which lies in the rules which have existed long before me.

2) The King believes in justice for all. Honest, he does. I can’t tell you how many times he’s said to me, Bertrand, it doesn’t matter to us if one of our lords or one of our peasants commits a crime. Criminals should be equal under the eyes of the law.

3) The King hates liars and sycophants.

All of this would have worked to my advantage if it weren’t for the last item.

4) The King loves his kids.

Things would be much easier for me if he were your average cold-hearted monarch. But he’s not. He came into office at the age of 30 with reform on the brain and love in his heart. And