A Sparrow Stole My Place as Heir novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Sun Did Not Rise

The hall turns on Daelan for shaming a guest; he strips the God of Horses of the sun-team, ends his betrothal in two sentences, and is confined, until dawn comes and the sun does not rise.

I did not apologise.

I stood in the middle of the hall with the Crown on my head and the Atlas in my arm.

The black cloth was already back over the Mirror, and I let my father's order hang in the air.

"No," I said.

A murmur went down the long tables.

"Daelan," my father said. "I have asked you once."

"And I've answered once."

On the dais, Perrin had begun to cry.

He did it quietly, with the burned hands held out in front of him, and the sisters closed around him.

"I never said I was the heir," he said. "I only sang. I only wanted to be near her voice."

"He sang at Mother's window every night for a year," said the sister of Noon. "Where were you?"

"Studying," said the sister of Dusk. "Always studying. You never once cried for her."

It was the old charge, and the sisters said it as though it were the oldest fact in the world.

The first time, it had worked on me every time.

I had bowed my head and let them say it.

"I grieved in my own rooms," I said. "I didn't hold a recital."

Thessaly stepped down off the dais.

"Say it to his face. He is a guest in this house and you have burned him in front of the Three Realms."

"The Atlas burned him. He took what wasn't his."

"He took what was offered."

"By whom? You do not own it, Thessaly. Mother left it to me."

For a moment she had nothing to say.

At the doors, the guards had the God of Horses by both arms.

He went without a fight, but he turned in the doorway to look at me.

"A boy can't hold the sky with a book," he said.

"I'm not holding it with the book," I said. "Hold him there."

The guards stopped.

I opened the Atlas, and the page turned itself to a long list of names in my mother's hand.

The first line read: Keeper of the Sun-Team.

Under it was his name.

I put two fingers on the line and drew them across it.

The gold ink lifted off the page, and a bar of light went through the hall to the God of Horses and lit his chest.

He grunted and went down on one knee.

When the light went out, his red beard was only a beard and he looked like any old stable hand.

"The team is not yours," I said. "Chain him at the Sky Gate. If anyone wants to carry his reins, let them say so now."

Nobody did.

I closed the Atlas.

"There's one more thing."

I turned to the front row.

Maelis had not sat down.

She stood with one hand at her left wrist, over the gold thread, and her grey eyes were fixed on me with a look I could not read.

"Maelis Fairwater," I said. "Our betrothal is ended. Take the ring back to your mother's house."

Her breath went in, and the hall heard it.

Our mothers had made that promise when we were children, and I had worn the ring four years.

"Here?" she said. "Now?"

"You sat at his side while my sister gave him my gift. You can stand here while I give you back yours."

Her face went pale, and then very still.

She pulled the ring off her finger and set it on the edge of the table.

She did not look at the Atlas, or the Crown.

She looked at the thread on her wrist and said, quietly, "I would never have ended it."

Then she turned and walked out of the hall, and her family's servants hurried after her with the covered Mirror between them.

My father rose.

"You have broken a feast and a promise and a guest's trust in one hour," he said. "Go to your rooms. You will stay there until you can speak like a son."

"I speak like the heir."

"Then you will stay there like one."

Two guards stepped out from the wall.

I could have called the Atlas again.

I did not.

I walked out between them with the Crown still burning on my brow, and every god in the High Hall looked at the floor.

In my rooms, I sat on the end of my bed and opened the Atlas.

The second page held the nine Hours of the sky, each one a small gold clock, each one with a sister's name beside it.

Dawn: Thessaly.

First Light: Wynne.

I read them until the candles burned down, and I slept sitting up.

I woke in the grey before morning, and went to the window.

It was First Light.

It was Wynne's hour, and the whole eastern sky had gone the colour of ash.

The ash thinned, and went pale, and held.

Dawn did not come.

The gate stayed shut, the grey stayed where it was, and the sun did not rise.

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