Across the kingdom, in the capital, the royal palace sat above a city ringing with alarm bells, and in a private war chamber beneath the queen's wing, the First Queen was holding court over a map.
She was a handsome woman, silver in her dark hair, cold in her beauty, and she sat with the total calm of a chess player who has already seen the next nine moves. Her father stood beside her chair, a heavy old duke with iron grey brows, and around the chamber walls the loyal nobles waited in silence like furniture that occasionally bowed.
