I woke late in the morning. Fiena sat beneath the window, the heavy curtains open just enough to bathe her in the overly bright morning light whilst she altered one of my dresses and her impossibly neat braids shone red where the sunlight touched them.
“I’m getting fat,” I observed from the bed.
“Nonsense,” she replied looking up with a smile. “You’ve just been around the castle a bit more recently than normal.”
“At the tavern, don’t you mean?”
“Well, yes,” she was amused. “More nights than not.”
“Akyran’s in a mood,” I told her. “He likes to ease it with hunting and ale.”
“And you, my lady?” She teased. “Are you in a mood?”
I laughed. “Well, I can’t let him drink alone, can I? There’s no harm to a bit of ale.”
“Except to my fingers from altering your dresses,” she replied. “But the prince likes a bit of a curve on a woman.”
I sighed. “Akyran doesn’t see me that way,” I told her.
“Mmm,” she set the sewing to the side. “Shall I run your bath?”
“Yes please.”
Perhaps if I looked more like the courtesans he favoured, Akyran might finally see me as more than Ecaeris his friend. My lifestyle, however, saw me missing more meals than I ate. If we were not hunting, or fighting, we were riding... Perhaps if I spent more time in courtly pursuits, I thought, as I sat up. But spending hours listening to bards and eating sweet meats, sewing embroidery, or playing cards with dignified reserve held no appeal.
I was a war mage, after all, it was my nature to battle, I preferred to be on the move, rather than sitting still, the harder and more daring the adventure, the better.
I bathed and stood in the dressing room with Fiena and Tillie, scrutinizing my clothing. They regarded it as a serious occupation, whereas I found it more a frustration. Court fashions came and went like the seasons. It was a never-ending task to keep up with which type of sleeve and what manner of embellishment was current in vogue, and which were not.
I, on the other hand, liked what I liked, and knew what I did not like, and my wardrobe choices reflected that regardless of the vagaries of court fashion. The current fashion at the Court of Light was featherlight and sheer fabrics in tiered pale colours, floating from fragile shoulder clasps, or woven into bodices, whereas my personal choices were more dark jewel tones, in order to hide the blood stains that accompanied most of my activities, in heavier fabrics for better wear, and minimal embellishment and undergarments. And usual tunics and trousers rather than dresses.
Presenting well in court, however, was a requirement, and that meant finding a middle ground between personal preference and fashion on occasions such as this.
“You should wear a dress,” Fiena said hopefully. “It is court, after all.”
“I’ll wear a dress tonight,” I wanted to wear that dress. From the moment I had seen the fabric, I had wanted that dress. I wondered what Akyran would make of it. Even he would have to notice me in that dress.
“Yes, but that’s that dress and tonight,” Fiena replied. “You should wear the dark blue today,” she drew it out, flaring it over her arm.
“Very well,” I did not mind the blue. It was cut severely, high necked, and buttoned up the front which allowed me to leave a few buttons undone at the throat. It was the feminine version of how Akyran dressed and from his tailor, one of the random gifts he gave to me when the mood struck him, or something caught his eye. Normally a gift from Akyran was a weapon, or armour, but he had been expanding to clothing and trinkets recently. “The blue it is.”
They knew better than to try an elaborate hairstyle, quickly winding the hair back from my face and binding it behind so it would not fall forwards into my eyes.
Dressed to all our satisfaction, I left them to pack.
The hall would normally be overflowing with feasters attending the king, but in his absence, Akyran sat at the head table, and oversaw a room empty but for a handful of minor Lords currying his favour, and the servants that attended them. I sat to Akyran’s left, in the seat he normally occupied when his father was present.
“You’re wearing a dress,” he commented, serving me a cut of the pastry that sat before him. “One I bought you.”
“I like this one and my maids tell me a dress is appropriate.”
“Hmm,” he slid a look at me under his eyelashes. “The colour is good.”
“Thank you,” I was pleased he noticed. It was not the first time I had worn the dress around him, however, and I wondered why, today, it was something he found worth of commenting on.
“It’s not what you’re wearing tonight, are you?” he added.
“No,” I cut a bite of the pastry. “I have an evening dress for tonight.”
“Jewels,” he chewed his mouthful.
I frowned at him, wondering at his sudden interest. “I guess,” I agreed. “The dress doesn’t need them, however.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You sound like a girl,” he observed.
“I am a girl,” I reminded him, pointedly.
“Yes,” he replied, a flush touching his cheeks. “But you sound like a girl, girl.”
“What do girls sound like?” I wondered.
“Dresses that don’t need jewels. Like they’re sentient.”
I frowned at him. “Why are we discussing dresses and jewels, Akyran?” I asked him.
“I don’t know,” he replied with exasperation. “I guess because... if you look the part, Ecaeris, they’ll leave me be.”
I stared at him. What part, I wanted to ask, but I feared shattering the delicate hope that had blossomed at his words. “I’ll get Fiena to pack some jewels if you think it necessary, Akyran.”
“Thank you,” he was relieved I wasn’t asking any awkward questions. “Can you ride in that dress?” he added. “I had thought we’d play a round of chovgan this afternoon.”
“I’ll make sure Fiena packs something appropriate,” I replied, reaching across him to spear some baked fish onto my plate. “I’d hate for you to blame me wearing a dress for your loss.”
“Our loss,” he corrected.
“I won’t lose,” I replied archly. “I might be on the losing team, but my personal performance won’t be at fault...”
“Haha,” he sneered with enjoyment. “Only because you cheat, mage.”
“I am completely honourable with my magic,” I retorted and tugged some strands of his hair free as I stood.
“Ow,” he complained, his hand coming to his head, scowling. “What was that for?”
“Royal harlot’s hair is a very useful spell component,” I replied.
“I am not a harlot,” he grumbled, following me from the table.
“I’m on the other side of the wall from your bedchamber,” I reminded him. “Oh, Akyran, oh, oh. Oh.”
He flushed. “There is no way you can hear through the stone, Ecaeris.”
“Oh, Akyran,” I replied, my voice rising hitching, breathy. “Do that thing... What thing exactly?”
“Ecaeris,” the colour patched on his cheeks. “Shit,” he muttered under his breath.
“Maybe close your windows,” I suggested. “Lady Beria in particular...”
“Ecaeris,” his voice held a warning. “That is...”
“Mmhmm.” I waited a breath. “Akyran, like a stallion...!”
“- Ecaeris,” he groaned, the flush on his cheeks brilliant. I giggled. For a moment we walked in companionable silence and then: “You aren’t really going to use my hair...” he added.
I held up my hand, showing that I still clutched the dark strands.
“Ecaeris,” he protested, “give me that.”
I snatched up my skirts and ran through the hallways, with him in pursuit, sending pages and servants scattering in our wake as we careened around corners and dashed up staircases. I managed to keep just beyond his grasp as we began the sprint along the long hallway to our bedchambers, but he caught me along the wall between our chambers, about where his bed was positioned, and we wrestled until he pinned my wrists against the wall above my head as he retrieved the stolen strands from my grip.
“These are going into the fire,” he said, severely, breathless from the pursuit. His eyes darkened as he looked down at me, and for a moment, I thought there was a flash of heat... and then he pulled back, and it was gone, leaving me wondering if it were ever there in the first place or just wishful thinking on my behalf.
“An hour,” he said to me over his shoulder.
“That should give me long enough to find some jewellery,” I replied.
Fiena and Tillie had converted my chambers into chaos, with chests overflowing with clothing and the bed strewn with undergarments and accessories, the floor lined with shoes. I had not even known I owned so many.
“It’s just a night or two,” I protested, knowing I argued fruitlessly. “Not those shoes,” I nudged a pair with my toes. “They were agony to wear. One of you can have them, if they fit. Or sell them, donate them, whatever you do with such things.”
If I had said I was going hunting with Akyran for a week, there would be less fuss. I would throw a couple of changes of trousers and shirts into a bag and be done, but two or so nights at the Court of Light, and, apparently, I needed to take every item I owned with me.
I slid back out the door and went to Akyran’s room. Things were less chaotic there – neat piles of shirts, tunics and trousers folded already in a chest, formal wear laid out across the bed, and no shoes or accessories in sight. Akyran raised his eyebrows at me as Ithyles buttoned his shirt sleeves.
I sat on his bed. “Fiena has turned my chambers upside down,” I complained. “You would think I were leaving them forever from what she’s packing. I should get Ithyles to pack for me in future.”
Akyran and Ithyles exchanged a long-suffering look.
“Hopefully, she’ll pack some jewels,” Akyran muttered.
“What is your sudden obsession with my adornments?” I complained.
“Rivyn has a pregnant wife,” he replied, irritably. “It means my parents look for me to do the same. If I can distract them with you covered in baubles, Ecaeris, I will do so, gladly, even if I have to put the baubles on you, myself.”
I muttered under my breath.
“What was that?” he asked as Ithyles held his jacket up for him to shrug into.
“Nothing,” I replied, sulkily. I had said that I would much rather he showed me what a stallion did that made Lady Beria shriek in such a way, than hang a king’s ransom of jewels around my neck, but it wasn’t something I could repeat audibly.
As he finished dressing, there was a knock at the door, and Ithyles opened it to admit a rather flustered looking Fiena.
“We are ready, my lady,” she told me, unsurprised to find me lounging on Akyran’s bed waiting. “Your chests have been transferred.”
“Oh, good,” Akyran said drolly. “Let’s go.”
In the main hall, near the front door, the overlarge, elaborately framed mirror-portal allowed perpetual transition from one court to the other. It had been a wedding gift from King Treyvin to Queen Leamoira, a symbolic linking of the two courts as their marriage had done in reality for the first time in thousands of years. I could cast Akyran and I a portal, but it would be a waste of spell components when the way lay so readily available.
He offered me his arm, and I placed my hand upon it before we stepped through together.
The wind blew a ball of spindle weed across the baked-dry land before us, and the heat of the sun caused sweat to prick between my shoulder blades and gather between my breasts, sticking the cloth of my tunic to my skin. I blew a stubborn fly from my face and slid a look at Akyran. The sun had reddened his cheeks and the tip of his nose where his helmet exposed them, and a drop of sweat tracked its way through the stubble-roughened surface of his neck to be absorbed into the collar of his tunic top.A stillness settled over the land as if every creature waited with us for the moment of battle. We stood back from the well opening weapons in hand, each man and woman intently listening, anticipating attack.There was a dull “whomp” that seemed to shudder the ground, and for a moment, the air seemed to draw into the well like a breath as the fire cast by Daerton and Rivyn into their well location several miles away consumed the oxyge
In the morning bright light, in between stolen mouthfuls of fruit-ladened bread and herbal tea, we prepared for the day our own way, by preparing our armour and weapons. My armour had not seen active use for over a decade and I tsked over the stiffness of the leather.“I need new armour,” I complained. “And new weapons.”“That can be arranged, but not on short notice,” he replied as he helped me with the buckles of my armour.“I also need to take on some new pages and squires,” I sighed. “Not that you aren’t doing a great job…” I sent him a grin and he chuckled.“I’ve had some practise with armour. I think you will have your pick of Aurien’s dragonets if you are looking for pages,” he pointed out and dropped a kiss onto my forehead. “Done.”“I can hardly make princes
Between the craftsmen manufacturing new nets and Akyran’s people searching the city for every net that they could find; they were prepared for our return. Akyran rolled out the map whilst we ate around the great table with the leaders of his army, and he divided them into teams. As we finished the meal, the terrible call of the creatures echoed overhead and we all looked up instinctually, although all that we could see was the arch of slate overhead.“We must endure another night of this,” Akyran said. “As the plan relies on them being in the underground caverns. In the morning, we will begin netting, and by afternoon, between Rivyn, Daerton and Ecaeris, we will burn the monsters to ash.”“I’ll be back in the morning then,” Rivyn declared and cast a portal, the wind whipping the edges of the map so that Akyran had to use his hands to pin it to the tabletop until the portal closed again behind h
“Our daughters are children,” Aurien turning to address Leamoira. “Dragons mature at the same rate as humans. I find it difficult to believe that the prophecy intends for our children to fight monsters before they are fully grown.” “It would be difficult for a child to wield a sword,” Leamoira agreed. “There is no measure of time to the prophesy, but I think it’s safe to assume that it will be a number of years until the heroine is ready to fulfil her future. Which leaves us with what to do in the interim?” “It seems to me,” King Sterin looked at me. “That we have someone experienced in hunting these monsters already in our midst.” The murmuring amongst the assembly rose, courtiers and royalty alike whispering behind raised fans and the palms of their hands. “You’ll recall that the last one I fought, almost killed me,” I reminded him. “A team is needed,” Sterin replied. “Obviously, to support
As the day aged into afternoon, we gathered on the terraces overlooking the town below as the arrival of the dignitaries from all over our world formed a parade winding its way up into the castle, serenaded by bards and showered with the petals of flowers. “I see Aurien,” I spotted him by his golden hair which had been left free like a magnificent coat. “As if he is hard to spot,” Akyran replied with a hint of jealousy. “He stands a head over most others.” “He’s just jealous,” Rivyn grinned enjoying his twin’s reaction. “Ecaeris hasn’t exactly been secretive over her admiration for our golden friend.” “I just whole-heartedly believe it is unnatural for dragons to wear clothing,” I replied innocently. “It must be so inconvenient for him.” “I’m just glad he’s married, and being dragon, entirely faithful,” Akyran spoke over my head to Rivyn. “Or I’d be chaining her to the bed.” “You could do that anyway,” I suggested, and Akyran’s eyes lit fiercely. “I could,” he agreed putting his
It was odd being back at the Court of the Light without Fiena, Tillie, or Ithyles to serve us. We had been assigned new servants, and they did not know our ways or habits, something which irritated Akyran, causing him to be short and curt with them.“We should have stopped by Nerith and brought your servants with us,” I commented to him as we settled into the bath and the servants retreated to lick their wounds. “You are too harsh. It is not their fault that we have been absent from court for a decade.”“Over a decade,” he reminded me passing me a wine goblet.“My point precisely.”“I am in a foul mood,” he admitted leaning his head back against the lip of the bath, his dark hair spreading out in the water around him like ink.“Your mother?” I guessed.“A bit, but the realisation is