The Princess of Ash novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Eleven Years Ago

"I move that the bride be cast out," said the Speaker, "for drawing steel on a guest under salt."

My father waved a hand before anyone could answer.

"No, no.

"A grieving daughter, Speaker.

"I would not have her punished for the weight of her heart."

He smiled around the hall.

Everyone could see what he was doing.

He forgave me in front of two hundred strangers so that I would owe him for it.

The Speaker's face fell, and I could have kissed my father for the one favour he had ever done me.

They were given rooms in the east wing, and the doors were locked and guarded.

I did not go to my own room.

I went up the tower stairs, and I knocked once on Auren's door.

He opened it before my knuckles fell.

His chamber was dark, and the window was open to the volcano's glow.

He stood in the red light in his shirtsleeves, with the old burn on his throat showing.

"Tell me," I said.

"All of it."

"Come in."

"Tell me about the night of the fire."

He closed the door behind me, and he leaned his forehead against it, with his back to me.

"I was twenty-three," he said.

"My sister was eleven.

"Carrow had held her for three years, as surety for a treaty, in a high room of your north tower."

"I remember a girl," I said slowly.

"A child with red hair who ate with her fingers."

"That was Marit."

"My mother taught her to read."

"Your mother sent me a letter every month in the Carrow seal, and she never signed it.

"I did not know who it was from.

"I only knew that it said Marit was well."

He turned and looked at me.

"On the last night, it came in a different hand.

"It said, Come tonight.

"It said, Come now, and come in the dark, and bring wings."

"And you flew."

"I flew four hundred miles in a night.

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