The Day I Married the Fire God, Three Brothers Regretted It novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: The Altar Flame
Helia walks into her own wedding on the Fire God's arm and the altar flame rejects Myrrha in front of everyone; Phlegon's fire wakes for the first time in twenty years.
"You're early," I said, because it was the only thing I could think of.
"So are you," Phlegon said. "I was told you were ill in bed."
His guards still had their swords out.
He lifted two fingers, and they lowered them.
He came down from the carriage slowly, with one hand on a black cane and the other on the door.
He was taller than the stories said.
He was thinner too, and his grey eyes went straight to my bare feet in the snow.
"Who told you that?" I said.
"A letter from your second brother. It came last week, in your father's name." He looked at the token in my hand. "Is that why you're standing on my bridge without shoes?"
"My brothers gave my wedding to Myrrha."
"Who is Myrrha?"
"My adopted sister. They think she's your bride."
Something moved in his face and was gone.
"And are you my bride, Helia?"
I held out the bronze token.
He took it, and it flared in his palm, warm and gold.
The guards behind him went still.
"My father's seal never lies," I said.
"No," he said quietly. "It doesn't."
He gave me his coat.
It smelled of cold iron and smoke, and I did not have to wonder why he kept it on his own back in a land of ice.
"The ceremony is tomorrow at sunset," I said. "I have no gown. No crown. My brothers will bar the hall."
"Then we won't wait for sunset," Phlegon said. "I'm not asking permission to enter your father's house. I'm arriving for a wedding I was promised."
He offered me his arm.
I took it.
By the time we reached the Sun Palace, the wedding hall was already lit.
Aethon had moved the ceremony up a day, to marry Myrrha off before our father came home.
He had filled the hall on the Sunset Cloud Sea with two hundred gods, and every one of them turned when the doors opened.
Myrrha stood at the altar in my gown.
The sun-thread glittered down her shoulders.
My crown sat on her dark curls.
Eous was beside her, holding her elbow.
I walked up the aisle on the Fire God's arm in a black iron coat three sizes too big for me, with snow melting off my hair.
"Helia?" Aethon said from the dais. "What is this?"
"My wedding," I said.
Nobody in the hall moved.
"Take her out," Aethon told the guards.
Phlegon didn't raise his voice.
"Touch her," he said, "and the Northern Realm will remember who stood in this hall."
The guards stopped.
"The Fire God has come for his bride," Phlegon said to the room. "The rite is simple. Whoever the altar flame answers to is my wife. Aethon, you'll want to give your sister the first try."
Aethon smiled.
"Gladly," he said. "Myrrha, my dear."
Myrrha stepped to the altar flame in the center of the dais.
It was a small gold fire in a bronze bowl, the first flame my father had ever lit.
She put out her hand.
Her face was perfectly calm.
The flame bent away from her fingers.
She tried again.
The flame leaned back until it was almost flat.
"It's the draft," Aethon said.
"It's not the draft," Phlegon said.
Then Myrrha tried a third time, and the flame jumped.
It caught her sleeve.
Fire raced up the sun-thread and over the veil, and my gown went bright all the way to the hem.
Myrrha screamed.
Eous dragged her away with his bare hands, and the crown rolled off her head and hit the floor with a bell sound.
The hall broke into noise.
Somebody threw a goblet of wine on her.
The flame in the bronze bowl stood back up, steady and gold, and waited.
Phlegon turned to me.
"Helia."
I walked to the altar in his coat and put my hand into the fire.
It did not burn.
It rose around my wrist, and it went from gold to white.
Every god in the hall shielded their eyes.
When I could see again, Phlegon was standing very close, his cane in one hand and the other held out to me.
"Say the words," he said.
"I take the Fire God as my husband," I said, loud enough for every row to hear.
"I take the Sun's youngest as my wife."
He kissed me in front of two hundred gods.
It was not a gentle kiss.
His mouth was warm, much warmer than his face had promised, and I held his coat shut at his chest and kissed him back until somebody in the hall started to clap and somebody else shouted for the guards.
When he pulled away, a spark sat on his fingertip.
He stared at it.
The whole hall saw it.
It was the first flame he had made in twenty years.
And the warm spot under my ribs, the one that had been with me all my life, went quiet.
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