Princess Haliwen Drim, her ascending majesty, awoke on the sixth day of the eighth month of the year. In the same bed she’d awoken for the sixty years prior.
Exactly sixty.
The door to her room swung open in a grand fashion. As a child, Haliwen would’ve leapt from her bed, but now she simply sighed. Sibling or assassin, both were a minor inconvenience.
As it turned out, it was the former. Her eldest brother, under her of course, stood beaming in her doorway. His pointed white-gray teeth locked together in a straight bar of happiness.
“Happy day of your birth, sister-love.”
Haliwen sat up in bed and sighed. “Everyone who does not reside on our island uses the world “Birthday” for such an occasion.”
Haecian smirked as he leaned back against the wood of her door frame. “Well, when you are coronated and become the ruling lady of all our fine people who do reside upon this island, then you will have the right to change our celebratory word for a day of birth to birthday if it so pleases you.”
Haliwen gave him a glare as she swung her milky-pale legs over the edge of her bed. “Have I ever informed you that you are the most ignorant boy to ever disgrace this household?”
He grinned at her harsh taunting. “Every morning, midnoon, and evening since I was born.”
“Good.” Haliwen murmured. “Than give me a day-of-birth present early and leave me to get dressed.”
Haecian chuckled. “I will in simply a moment, but first mother asked me to remind you that you have your banquet tonight, and you are not yet queen. She requested you to wear a dress she had specially made for you.”
Haliwen groaned slightly. “I have never ceased to detest the dresses she has picked out for me.”
“I know.” He answered. “So this year, I took the liberty of designing the gown.”
He waved his hand, and someone handed him a long swath of black fabric. Haliwen rose, her night-shirt shifting around her thighs.
Haecian entered her room and she pulled her blankets up her bed, the white fabric smoothing out.
He spread the dress on the bed. It was black, with tight sleeves that would attach at her middle finger, to keep her arms covered. The top was tightly fitting, with no collars. Haliwen despised collars. It was simple smooth fabric across the entirety of it. The neckline scooped gracefully low, the skirt flared, but hemmed shorter, so it wouldn’t touch the ground whens she walked.
Silver and red embroidery shaped the seams, and graceful but strong metalwork had been melded to the top. An elegant breastplate that curved in hooked half-moons pressed flat to interweave, somewhere between feathers and scales, cupping around her breasts, waist, and back.
“A little extra protection did the opposite of hurt anyone. And you are hardly a lady, sister-love.” He murmured. “You are a fighter. A graceful fighter. An elegant fighter. But under all that pale skin, lay bones of silver. Blood of iron. My blood. Our blood.”
Haliwen met his eyes. Despite being twenty years her junior, he was still taller than her.
“Drim blood.” He said. “You are beautiful and blunt. Even-handed, and evangelistic. Otherwordly in how you fight. How you live.”
He gestured to the dress. “How you dress as well, I thought.”
Haliwen curled her arm around his head and rose on her toes, pressing her cheek to his. He returned the gesture.
“Thank you, brother-love.” She murmured. “This is the most wondrous dress I have ever received.”
Haecian nodded and turned to the door.
“Joyous birthday, sister-love.” He said, before pulling the heavy door shut behind him.
~
Herivan Myder woke before the sun rose over the hills, and was already dressed and sharpening her blades when her sisters both awoke. Amaryllis and Chrysanthemum. Her sisters were already eleven, but they already had gorgeous features. Silver eyes, long earth-brown hair, and ears that came ever-so-slightly to a point.
“Herivan?” Amaryllis asked, blinking in the dark. “Are you going out again? Are you looking for Nichol?”
Herivan nodded. “Yes, I am.”
“It’s been two months.” A stronger voice spoke. Herivan turned around, her cloak swishing, and met her mother’s angry eyes.
Herivan didn’t respond to her mother, who shared almost nothing with the two girls before her. The muddy brown-blonde hair and dark eyes were shared with Herivan only.
“I will find him.” Herivan finally managed. “I don’t care how long it takes.”
“It will take you longer than two months.” Her mother growled, walking to the stove. “We don’t have the money to keep feeding you here, either. You are a woman now, Herivan. He was a man. You need to start acting your age.”
Amaryllis and Chrysanthemum looked between both women with nervous faces. Herivan wanted to mention that the money they had was what Herivan sent home to support her younger sisters, but she didn’t want to cause yet another argument. So she kept silent, turning instead to the twins.
“I’ll see you tonight.” Herivan told them both. “I love you.”
Both girls opened their mouths, but her mother interrupted her.
“If you’re going to go, go.” She said. “Stop wasting space in the kitchen.”
Herivan met her mother’s eyes for a few moments, before she pulled her hood up, feeling the familiar thick fabric swarm her shoulders, head, and neck. The door swung open, and then shut again behind her.
The grasslands around her family’s small farm were close to a low lake. Mist and fog often rolled up from the lake below them. She didn’t often see people out and about, but today a woman stood in the rolls of mist. She had long grey and white hair. Her features were soft and pale. She was dressed in a shifting dress of blue-grey fabric, light and thin. It swirled around her body, snapping slightly in the harsh breeze.
She lifted her pale grey face, and from some dark eyelashes a swirling pair of soft eyes met hers.
Herivan swallowed once in confusion. She was sure she’d questioned every person in the area about her brother’s disappearance, and yet she’d never seen the woman who stood before her.
The woman turned fully and extended her hand. Herivan marched forward, one hand gripping her bow, her head bowed slightly.
“You’ve been with me every day.” The woman spoke. Her voice was quiet and slow, lilting and falling slowly as she spoke.
“Who are you?” Herivan asked. “I’ve never seen you.”
The woman smiled ever so slightly. “Surely you have heard of me. Your aunt must have told you of me. We spoke often.”
Herivan began to think of the stories her aunt had told her. She ran through half a dozen before one stuck out.
“Lady fog?” She asked.
The lady in front of her shook her head, curls bouncing slightly. “That is my sister. I am lady Mist.”
“Lady Mist.” Herivan corrected herself.
The lady nodded once, and turned her gaze across the grounds.
“...Lady Mist?” Herivan asked.
The lady in question trilled appreciatively, and Herivan shifted slightly.
“Were you here...the day my brother disappeared?” She asked softly.
The woman took a deep breath, halfway between a yawn and a sigh. She turned back to Herivan.
“No. I was not here. I cannot help you other than to tell you that he was taken on a clear day.” She murmured. She turned to look at the grasslands again, then back to Herivan.
“That is all I know.”
Before Herivan could blink, the mist clouded together, and the Lady Mist was gone. Herivan was alone in the misty plains, with little more information than she’d woken with.
But it was a start.
She only wished it could have come two months ago.
~
Westra Brightwood had just finished washing her hands when the door opened.
Lord Brightwood stepped forward, his slightly swollen knuckles extending toward a woman holding a baby, another small child by her hip, clutching her fingers. The woman was weeping silently, but both of the small children had audible cries.
Zilin Brightwood looked nothing like Westra. Her golden hair shone bright compared to his shining auburn hair. Her brown eyes were deeper than his golden ones. They were not related by blood, but he was her brother, nevertheless.
“Westra.” He spoke. She didn’t need to answer, she simply nodded once, wrapped her wrists in white cloth and hurried forward.
The older child was a little girl. She had singed hair and cuts across her face, arms, and feet.
Zilin took the mother and the baby to sit them down, to tend to their injuries. Westra helped the girl into a chair. Her bare, grubby feet hung several inches above the ground.
Westra started with those, cleaning them gently with a sponge, until the blood and dirt had been scrubbed off.
Zilin was murmuring softly to the woman and baby, but Westra remained silent. She didn’t feel comfortable around children. Zilin knew it. That’s why he always made her tend to them.
The girl sniffled a few times before she finally quieted, and Westra began to clean out her cuts and scrapes. And bandage them, before she finally moved to wipe the soot off the girl’s face.
She was fingering some of her charred hair. A long trail of mucus ran down her face from her nose. She winced when Westra wiped it away. The girl reached out suddenly and grabbed a fistful of Westra’s hair, using it to wipe her face. Westra crinkled her face and pulled back abruptly, pulling her golden locks from the girl’s grubby fingers. She noticed a small lip beginning to wobble, and quickly handed the girl a handkerchief.
“It’ll work better than hair.” She promised.
The girl blew her nose and wiped her eyes, then sat with the cloth crinkled in boney fingers as Westra pulled out a pair of shears.
“I won’t cut all your hair.” She said as the girl reared away. “But the burnt parts don’t look good, and they’re not healthy.”
The girl hesitated for a few moments longer, before she finally allowed Westra to cut the burn clumps of crisped hair from her small head.
They didn’t twirl gracefully to the ground, as hair usually did, but more fell straight and true, hitting the stone floor with no noise, but quite a lot of weight behind them.