Khara stood on the edge of her snowy hoverstone, looking down on the realm. She saw it all. The King’s Hoverstone, House Jorbert’s Hoverstone, House Bilt’s Hoverstone, this size of the tip of her pinky from here, various other Houses, some small, some large. And there was, of course, the curving spine of the Highlands, jutting out like a lizards back. Beneath them all, the Flatlands, a crazy quilt farmland, villages, hills, and far to the West, the coast. She could not see the East Shore. And at the moment, thanks to the elf’s death, they could not see her.

“When you look down on the Hoverlands, what do you see, Khara?”

She did not turn around, only smiled lightly. It was her trusted advisor, Tero, who was at her side all her life, since she was a little girl. “I see a little realm full of little people with little hopes and dreams.”

“It is not so little as it appears from up here.”

“I could reach out and crush them all.”

“Not without a dragon.”

Her sly grin wavered. “I’ve no need for a dragon. The realm has been conquered without one before.”

“Oh, indeed, indeed.” Tero joined her at the edge of the hoverstone. His white hair fluttered in the breeze; the open ends of his robes flapped; his exposed skin chilled to a white pallor. “Men have fought and died over the King’s Hoverstone. At the end of the Norman line, five generations ago, you’ll find a usurper. A bloody over-throw. War and death. Hoverlanders, Highlanders, and Flatlanders alike. But for you, there is another way. The way of dragonfire.”

“Not dragonfire.” She turned to him. “Icefire.”

“Icefire?”

“The dragon within that egg is a snowdragon, Tero. It is of Tegar’s blood. The first dragon among men.”

“The first dragon among men,” Tero said. He rubbed his chin and looked up into the thin, cloud-filled sky. “The first dragon. And yet, Tregar the Terrible never reigned as the Realm’s King. I wonder what kind of dragon-man shyed away from that. I wonder why.”

She bit her tongue.

This was the only man on her hoverstone that she allowed to speak with her like this--to speak against her. Her rage. It was a challenging thing to control. Her shoulders shook. One shove and over the edge this advisor goes. Yet, she restrained herself. She brought in a deep breath through her nose. “Tregar could have conquered them all, if he wished it.”

“Yet, he did not. Perhaps, when he looked over the edge of this Hoverstone, he did not think the realm looked so little. Perhaps he saw more.”

“Yet, against your point, Tero, he had a dragon.”

“So they say.” He crossed his arms. “So they say.”

“You do not believe it?”

“Most believe dragon’s are a myth. I believe they are very real. But I believe they are rare. Their eggs are an omen for a new leader to emerge, one to lead the realm into a new age. Tregar the Terrible did not do this; I do not believe he received such an omen.” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “But one needs more than an omen, Khara. One needs the omen to turn to fact. You need a hatched egg--and you need to understand that the realm is not so little, no matter what it appears to be from up here.”

She looked back down upon the realm. Her fingernail, blue, dug into her palms. Tero was right, of course. He was usually right in these matters.

“Your intention is to be Queen, then?”

His question startled her. But not enough to change the tone of her voice. “It is.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Then you will need to grow stronger. You will need a dragon.”

“Stronger?” Blood flowed down her hands. “I killed my father, who beat and raped me for years. I threw my mother from the hoverstone for letting him get away with it; she knew and did nothing. I cut all their advisors throats, for they were complicit. I took Frostfight with men loyal to me. All those who stood for my father are dead--or they wish they were, as they languish in the ice dungeon. You came, because I allowed for new counsel. One counselor. One voice.”

“And I am forever grateful, Khara.”

“I withstood years of torture at the hands of family. Family. Those meant to protect thier children. To nurture them. They took my innocence and I took their lives. And sized Frostfight’s hoverstone.”

There was a long, chilly silence between them.

In her mind, the taps of her father’s footsteps against the ice of castle Frostfight’s hallways clicked across her thoughts, the turn of the knob, creaking hinges. His fat, flushed face peeking through the door to her bed chambers. The shadow falling over her as she cowered under her covers. And the cold, smooth feeling of a knife tucked against her right thight. The knife she plunged into the side of her father’s neck. She would never forget the blood that gurgled out his veins--she would never forget the glee and, most importantly, her relief and freedom and being a victim no more.

Khara said softly, “I will seize another hoverstone, Tero. I will treat them no differently from my parents, for they do nothing to nuture the realm. They do nothing to protect their children, the Hoverlands, the Highlands, the Flatlands. They plot and scheme and treat all without the dignity and respect they deserve. But first, I will meet them. Look them in the eye.”

“Lord Gern Jorbert’s wedding?”

“I will attend. And I will feel for myself the weakness within the Norman bloodline. Then,” she said, turning towards her advisor, looking at him with ice, “I will do as you say: I will turn omen into fact. I will release my dragon.”

“And yet you killed the elf that likely knew just how that should be done. How will you learn the dragon’s egg’s secrets?”

Khara smiled. “The elf told me what I needed to know, Tero. Ice torture is unlike anything known to our realm. I will go to Dragonstone. Then I will destroy all the Houses who stand against me with Icefire.”