Pearlion Tor

Pearlion Tor, the city of peace, was in an uproar. The celebration of ten years of hard-won peace between the Meazyr and the Draimenan hadn't yet begun and there was already a scarcity of lodgings, and those who had not brought their own gowns and attire would either be paying exorbitant rates or would have nothing to wear. The city was filled to bursting with travelers, lords and ladies, merchants of every stripe. King Tanric himself was coming to greet the Four Princes of the Meazyr. Vaeri Eshenesra was certain it was going to end in bloodshed.

 

She would have preferred to be anywhere else in Draim, even standing in the ashes of Vells, than to be in Pearlion Tor celebrating the Peace of Pearlion. She closed her eyes and tasted the bitterness of the Peace. Ten years since she had learned of her father’s death at Vells. His body lost in the ash with the hundreds of others, soldiers, and their wives and children. Refugees that had fled before the Meazyr armies. The city had been a stationing point for soldiers but it had been filled with far more. And it had been burned until everything within was turned to ash.

 

She sighed and pressed her face to the glass of the window where she watched the chaos in the streets below. As a sign of her disfavor in court, her uncle had given her lodging separate from her cousins. They stayed in the Tor proper, walled and safe, she stayed in an opulent house just outside the inner wall. It didn't bother her, being separated from them. Her uncle had three sons and two daughters and they were all wretched.

 

She was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of Keya bustling through the room. Vaeri looked at her curiously as she pulled one of the spare gowns from the small room housing her celebration wardrobe.

 

“Your uncle has requested you come to the Tor for dinner. The Princes have arrived early.” Keya was checking over the indigo monstrosity, smoothing the favor belt.

 

“All of them?” She was trying to remember what they were called. Names were only traded in the most intimate of relationships by the Meazyr. Titles and honorifics were what they were called by and they changed with conquest or events. It was exhausting trying to keep track.

 

“Prince Tanril said to remind you to introduce yourself as a Flower of Kingholme. Otherwise, you might end up married or engaged and he knows you don’t want that.” Keya teased.

 

Vaeri laughed. She had been refusing the offers of the men her uncle and eldest cousin had tried to push on her. She had no intention of marrying a rotund duke or a dissolute earl. Her mother had chosen to marry a soldier, he had been raised in rank and granted titles by her indulgent father, King Tannon, when she would not be dissuaded. She had wanted a man of strength and character. She had demanded it. Vaeri intended to do no less.