A Battle of Fyre and Frost

Chapter One

"They're almost here," Mum tells me as she sweeps back in.

I turn to her from my vanity mirror and my heart thuds. "How long?"

She smirks. "How long do you want?" she teases, moving over to me as she pulls off her gloves.

I cover my trepidation with a grin. "Um, how about ten years?"

She laughs as she starts running her hands through my hair, her bright warm peal that never fails to make me smile as well. "I would love that."

I nod, relishing her touch. "But you'd rather not go to war."

She shrugs. "I mean, it's preferable, yes. And we've already agreed, so..." She waggles her head as she lets her subconscious style my hair the way she's done her best to make time for over the last eighteen years; an intricate braid in my blonde hair that hangs over my left shoulder.

I know what this is. "This is formality. We meet. We greet. We hope we don't hate each other. And we sign the contract."

"He goes home. We finish packing you up. You leave," she agrees. "I don't like sending you away, Laud..."

I take a deep breath. "I know. It's the Erynore daughter duty."

She leans down and wraps her arms around my shoulders, meeting my eyes in the mirror. As often as she can, my mother sheds her queenly mask and lets herself be the woman she wishes with her daughters. Only and always behind closed doors, obviously.

"Thank you," she tells me, and I put my hand on her arm.

I'm the child, and I'm the one going into dangerous territory, but I seem to be the one comforting her. "I'll be fine. It's only a little bit scary to be going to live with freaking dragons!"

Mum laughs, my attempt to diffuse her worry successful. We finish getting me ready, no longer fighting over my clothes the way we had for a good three years in my early teens.

It's my usual style of outfit and the only compromise Mum and I could come to. Corseted jacket with high collar, puffed at the shoulder and elbow, tapering to my wrists so my leather gloves could stretch up my forearm. Tight trousers covered with a full half skirt that brushed the floor behind me when I walked, leaving my trousers on show. The simple silver medallion Mum gave me for my eighth birthday, and heeled boots; I needed the height boost somehow and I wasn't doing it with my hair.

Mum pulls her gloves back on and I take in the sight of her as she transforms from doting mother to mighty queen about to broker peace between kingdoms. Like me, like the Erynore daughters always are, she's covered chin to fingertip to ground. But she is opulent where I'm practical.

She sweeps and glides through life. The only gliding I do is down banisters when no one's looking. And the only sweeping I do is when I fall off those banisters and slide across the floor in all my skirts.

"Come," Mum says, holding her hand towards the door.

This is the last time I'll leave my room as a single woman. In theory. Provided the delegation doesn't try killing us all at first sight, by the time I walk back into this room tonight, I will be betrothed for marriage.

The thought, surprisingly, doesn't calm me as I follow Mum down to the front gates where we'll wait for them to arrive. Sylv joins us, my sister doing a much better job, as usual, of being the poised princess. But then she is the heir to our mother's crown.

It doesn't take long for a rhythmic beat upon the air to start thudding in my brain. Sylv and I share a look. There's only one thing that makes a sound like that. The only question is; how many?