Alphabet of thorn / McKillip, Patricia A

When the orphan Nepenthe, an expert at translating languages, is given a book that she cannot interpret, she becomes obsessed with discovering its meaning and in turn it leads her to her destiny.

Nepenthe, an orphan who has been raised by the librarians of the Royal Library of Raine, becomes obsessed with deciphering a supposedly untranslatable book brought to the palace by a young mage, not realizing that the words and her fate are entwined with that of the newly crowned, fourteen-year-old queen.