It may sound like our aunt was a hard taskmaster, keeping us working all morning, and a good part of the afternoon, but in reality it was not as bad as one might imagine. It was no different than, say, the modern second grade. Aunt Achren and our tutors knew that as we were barely six, they could not expect us to be on the level an adult. We had two afternoons a week off from dance, and one morning off a week from school. We progressed that way quite peacefully for the next few years, book learning in the mornings and dancing in the afternoon.

The rules for my sister and I may have been strict, but we were allowed our time off. Kate engineered pranks on occasion, that we both were guilty of carrying to completion. Aunt Achren tried to instill in us the ideology that we were of a higher class than the servants or common people, but it never fully took. We often would go to the kitchens, and beg to be allowed to help. It was during those years that I discovered my love for cooking. Kate never took quite as well to it. She preferred the stables and horses. I followed her there my share of times, but she was the one that the animals seemed to love.

Sometimes on one of our afternoons free, we snuck into the great hall, to spy on our aunt and her advisors. We were curious what she did all day, what she meant when she had told us that she had 'Queen stuff' to do. The hall was so large that nobody noticed when we slid in a side door and hid behind a tapestry. As we were still children, the burocracy did not interest us much. But occasionally, we did hear something interesting. We learned, for example, that our aunt had a low regard for most of the nobles in her realm.

Despite her opinion of the rest of the nobility, our aunt would still occasionally host balls, never leaving out the upper crust of Cadiffor, in her attempts to maintain relationships between all the important people of the surrounding countries. During these balls, Henrietta kept an annoyingly close watch on my sister and I. We soon met her younger sister Hedwig, who was about our age. We had no idea, however, how much more we would be seeing them in years to come.

Every so often, we did go home to our father´s castle. The first time we went back after permanently moving in with Aunt Achren, we immediately saw the changes. Father had become increasingly interested in trade, and had begun to trade with other countries for all manner of exotic plants and animals. He had built a greenhouse for all his strange new plants (he would not allow these plants into the wild, for fear that they would destroy the ones already living in our country). He had also managed to procure examples of several interesting creatures, including a Pegasus, and a unicorn.

One day when we were admiring father´s new creatures, we were startled by a few centaurs riding up behind us. Father had invited them to come live in the area. Much to our surprise, a group of elves had also moved into the area, and a group of gnome craftsmen. We got to know them all during our stays at home. The gnomes taught us much about metallurgy, weaving, and ceramics. The centaurs taught us about the stars, their positions and the names of the constellations. The elves taught us much about living in the forest, and the plants found there. We became especially good friends with an elf-boy named Per, and a centaur named Roan, who were both only a few years older than us. We discovered the centaurs to have very humanlike minds, though they tended to be much wiser, as living past a hundred was not strange to them. We were always sad to leave them when we had to return to our aunt´s. Not that our aunt never had any dealings with interesting plants, animals, and other beings.

One afternoon, we discovered that our aunt owned a few different species of dragon. First of all, there was the small water dragon that lived in the lake near the castle. As we later learned, water dragons were one of the smaller varieties, not usually any bigger than a medium sized dog, and often closer to the size of a cat. Then there were the cave dragons that mostly lived in the mountains. As adults the smallest cave dragons were the size of a large dog, and the largest were the size of a not quite full grown pony. We also heard of fire breathing dragons, though they were much more rare, and our aunt never had any. They also tended to live in caves in the mountains, but were far bigger than the standard cave dragons, the smallest adult being the size of a horse, and the largest ones being the size of a house.

We would have been happy to stay in this type of environment forever, but it was not to be. When we were twelve, our lives changed forever.

Kate and I made a point of once every few weeks hiding behind a tapestry to listen in on what our aunt talked about with her counsellors. This particular day, we were brought up in discussion.

'My lady, you must choose an heir,' her counsellors would occasionally advise.

'I am well aware of the situation. As my late husband and I never had any children, I must choose someone to rule when I am gone,' Aunt Achren replied. 'You must be patient.'

'But my lady, should something happen to you before you have chosen an heir, there could be civil war,' another counsellor advised. 'There are several who could claim to be the person for the throne.'

'I am aware of that,' Aunt Achren replied. 'But, Kate, Lucia, and Hedwig are still children. I want to wait to see what they grow to become. I don´t want any fools on my throne. Henrietta as well has growing yet to do.'

'Lucia, Kate, and Hedwig are twelve. I doubt we should call them children anymore,' the first counsellor said.

Aunt Achren nodded. 'Their father might do well to notice that as well.'

Later that day, she called us in to tell us that we would be going back to our father´s the following weekend. As much as we relished the thought of going home, we had come to love Aunt Achren, despite her strict ways.

Our father, had for a long time treated us as small children, though we were grown up enough to resent it. For the first time, however, he seemed to notice.

'I should send you off to finishing school,' he said. 'And teach you how to rule during the vacations.'