The Princess and Curdie

The Princess and Curdie is a children's fantasy novel by George MacDonald, published in late 1883 as the sequel to The Princess and the Goblin. It picks up a year or two after the first book, with Princess Irene and Curdie both older than they were, and it sends them against a set of corrupt ministers.

Irene and her father the king have gone to Gwyntystorm, and Curdie has stayed at home with his family, where he has taken up hunting for the pleasure of it and has begun to doubt Irene's account of her great-great-grandmother. That doubt breaks when he shoots a white pigeon, realises it must have been one of the old Princess's birds, and follows a light up to the roof, where he meets her and confesses what he has done.

She lets him keep his bow and arrows but tells him to use them for good rather than harm, burns his hands in her fire of roses so that he can feel on the inside what the people he meets are really like, and sends him on a quest. His task is to help Irene and her father against the ministers who are poisoning the king and plundering the kingdom, and a monster called Lina becomes his companion on the way.