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Marisol Bean, Dragon Queen
Daughters of Dissany Book One
Whenever a princess of Dissany turns seventeen, she is sent away from her home to foster with one of the other races in the land. This is called the Tine, and the humans have been paying it for centuries.
On her seventeenth birthday, Marisol Bean is scheduled to go to the stone people of the North, who are every bit as dull as the chunks of granite they resemble. Thirsting for adventure, Marisol switches places with her twin sister, Meredith, who is heading off to live with the great dragons of the South.
Much more than adventure awaits Marisol in the land of the dragons. Forced to serve the brash king of dragons as a maid, she witnesses a plot to assassinate her master. He avoids death, but an enemy magician manages to wound him deeply...by turning him into a human. Now, with her humbled king in tow, Marisol must pursue the would-be killers across the continent. When they finally catch up to their quarry, the things that Marisol learns about the plot, her king, and herself will change her world forever. |
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About the Author
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Elisabeth and Ian Arbuckle live in Washington State with their two cats, the Bonnie Prince Charlie and Mary, Queen of Scots.
They both work at a rural hospital. They eat as much Indian food as possible. "Marisol Bean, Dragon Queen" is their first book together, and it was concocted during their honeymoon. The title came first.
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Excerpt
Marisol awoke as the sun was just beginning to litter the hanging clouds with red light. She had slept poorly; every way she twisted her body something seemed to be poking her in the gut. She wasn't hungry, but the only feeling she compare the discomfort to was the attack of a hunger pang. The night had passed in short, aborted dreams stitched together by moments of wakefulness at what felt like every half hour.
Urich was lying on his back a few feet away, bent slightly toward the lip of the fire pit in which hot stones were giving off pure white wisps of steam. He was still asleep, his hands folded neatly across his chest. Marisol wondered what he was dreaming.
Not wishing to wake him with her tossing, turning, and scraping, she stood and, after soaking up a bit of heat, set off to find some water or food, anything to fool her stomach into quieting.
Marisol was not the only one awake at this hour. As she crossed the camp to where she and Urich had dropped their packs, she was stopped a handful of times by curious dragons who gave every impression of sleep until she drew near, and then their eyes slid open, flashing in the gloom like a cat's eyes. They asked her to confirm; they had heard she had witnessed the transformation. All were pleased when she told them that yes, prince Kale would face their king as an equal; all seemed to have forgotten how ready they had been just yesterday to storm the elven camp as soon as Urich's bloodied hands hit the ground.
Marisol reached the packs and dug out her water skin. She stood, strangely warmed by the cold liquid as she drank, and watched the sun come up. The bellies of the clouds faded from red to pink to orange as the sun climbed closer to the horizon, and then, as the curve of its head broke the surface, Marisol saw that there would be no sun today, for the clouds draped down nearly to the water's surface. A thin window, miles off, let the yellow disc cast its beams through for a short few minutes, exposing the true dull gray of the clouds, and then it slid behind their cloak and the whole of the sky began to glow white.
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