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CHAPTER ONE. ━━━━━━━━━ Like summer, The young never last.
DAWN WINTERS, HELLOPOETRY ━━━━━━━━━
"MOTHER?" A SMALL VOICE ASKS. "May I go and watch Willas and Garlan ride?"
The first word halts Alerie Tyrell in her steps, and she pivots on her heel to regard the tiny figure trotting along in her wake. Clarysse stands still, her posture flawless, hands clasped in front of her. Wispy brown curls perfectly in place, pale silk dress without a single wrinkle, wide blue eyes calm and patient.
Gods, she thinks, barely four years old, and she has better manners than most of the young women in King Rhaegar's court.
The Lady of Highgarden approaches her daughter and kneels on the ground to look her in the eye. "Mother, is it?" she inquires gently. A tiny twinge of sadness — almost of loss — pricks at her heart when the girl nods. She draws her thumb over the slope of her rosy cheek and quietly asks, "Whatever happened to Mama?"
Clarysse frowns, her composure ruffled ever so slightly. "Septa Anera says that it is common. She says that proper ladies always call their fathers Father and their mothers Mother. Only peasants say Mama."
For a moment, Alerie deeply regrets needing a septa in the castle. Us Southerners with our strange ideas and our peculiar rules ...
The stinging in her chest grows as she continues to look at the little girl — the little lady — because in no time at all, she will be properly grown, and if by then she's half as pretty as Alerie imagines, House Tyrell will be drowning in offers for her hand. Her own father had shipped Alerie off to Highgarden at the tender age of three-and-ten to wed Mace Tryell.
But right now Clarysse has a baby's softness in her cheeks, a baby's chubby fingers, and her mother will be damned if she lets her stop being a child quite yet.
"I suppose that your septa knows such things well, far better than I," she begins. Then she leans in and whispers with a smile, "but when it's just you and me, you can call me what you like. What do you think?"
Clarysse takes a moment to consider, and Alerie feels a ridiculous pull of anxiety in her stomach. But then her doll-like face splits into a wide grin, and she hugs her mother tight around her neck. "Yes, Mama."
And as Alerie Tyrell folds her eldest daughter — her first girl after three sons — into her arms, her sweet summer child, she lets herself dream for a moment that she might keep her here forever.
CLARYSSE TRIES HER HARDEST to be perfect in every possible way, to be the perfect lady. She has always been complimented on her beauty, on her stitching, on her manners — she takes great pride in this. Her mother looks on with beaming joy and her father with love.
