The Day I Married the Fire God, Three Brothers Regretted It novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: The Night Before

Helia's POV

They put me back in my old room in the Sun Palace the night before the wedding.

The bed was the same narrow gold bed I had slept in since I was seven.

The window looked out on the same drifting cloud sea, now mine, turning violet under the first stars.

Lampos knocked at my door a little after dark.

He came in and sat on the edge of the window seat with his hands between his knees.

"Father is naming me heir tomorrow," he said. "At the wedding, in front of everyone."

"I know."

"You know?"

"He asked me first." I sat down beside him. "I said it was his to give."

"Tell me not to take it."

"Why?"

"Because I watched." His voice was thin. "I stood there in the Hall of Gowns and I watched and I let them. A man who does that shouldn't sit in a chair that decides things."

I turned to face him.

"You walked into the northern hall in the snow and said what you saw."

"After it cost you a week."

"After it cost you something too." I took his hand. "You were afraid of Aethon your whole life, and you said it to his face anyway. Aethon can learn what that is. Father can't teach it to him. You can."

He stared at our hands.

"And Aethon?"

"Aethon is going to be at the Sun Palace every day of his life, doing whatever you ask him to." A smile pulled at my mouth. "I think he'll be good at it, now that he's been told no."

Lampos laughed, a surprised hiccup of a sound, and wiped his eyes with the back of his wrist.

"You sound like Mother."

"I took her seal token from her drawer."

"I know. I saw you."

He kissed my forehead and went out.

← Chapter 21 · All chapters · Chapter 23 →

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