Chapter 12: The Queen's Fire

Maelis did not leave the room.

She wanted to, with every nerve in her body.

Instead she pulled a chair to the foot of the bed and sat down in it.

She wore a torn shift and no shoes, and she kept her chin lifted.

"Tell me all of it," she said. "From the beginning."

Torvald's hands lay open on the sheet.

"My father died in the war with Corrin," he said.

"I was twenty, and the host was mine.

"I swore I would put your father's city to the torch."

"And you did not."

"I would have." His mouth twisted.

"The people ran into cellars, and your father's guards threw down their spears."

"And my mother came out."

He closed his eyes. "She stood on the palace steps with her hands open. She said, go home, boy."

Maelis's throat tightened.

"I laughed at her. I had eight hundred dragons behind me. I told my dragon to burn her where she stood."

"And she burned you."

"She rose." His voice dropped to a whisper.

"I had heard of the Dawnborn in stories, and I did not believe in them.

"My dragon's wing caught fire in the air, and we fell."

Her hands were cold in her lap.

"I remember her face above me when they dug me out of the rubble."

"What was on her face?"

"She was crying."

The fire popped in the hearth.

"She knelt in the dust and put both hands on my back," he said.

"She tried to heal me.

"But fire only heals what it did not burn.

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