Kneel Before The Dragon Queen novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Cup
Lark heals the Regent's cough before the whole court, Lord Marshal Hadrian knocks the cup away and a hound dies, and the Warden of the North claims the accused healer as his wife.
The Lord Regent coughed until blood stood on his lip, and the whole Ember Hall watched him do it.
I stood three steps below his throne with my healer's satchel open and my hands steady.
Five years of hiding had taught me how to stay steady in a room full of people who wanted me dead.
None of them knew it.
To them I was Lark Alder, a river-town healer hired a fortnight ago to ease the Regent's lungs.
"Drink it slowly, Your Grace," I said.
I held out the cup of root tea I had brewed myself.
Aldous Valdrath took it with a hand that shook.
My uncle had grown old and gaunt in the five years since he stole my crown.
He sat on my father's throne, and above his head the great iron rings hung empty where a dragon's chain should have been.
The dragon was not on that wall anymore.
I knew where they kept her, and I had come back to Halvard for her.
The Regent drank.
His breathing eased, and a murmur ran through the lords along the walls.
"The girl has a gift," someone said.
I bowed my head so no one would see my face.
Then boots rang on the marble behind me, fast and heavy, and I knew that walk before I turned.
I had followed that walk through a thousand corridors once.
I had trusted it with my life.
Lord Marshal Hadrian Kell crossed the hall in his black coat, and his eyes found mine.
For one breath his face went white.
Then it went hard.
He struck the cup out of the Regent's hand.
It rang across the floor and tea splashed over the steps.
"Poison," Hadrian said.
The hall went silent.
"I watched her mix it, Your Grace. She put wolfsbane in the pot."
"That's a lie," I said.
"Bring the hound," Hadrian said.
A guard dragged in the Regent's old mastiff on a rope.
Hadrian pushed the animal's nose into the spilled tea.
The dog lapped twice, shuddered, and dropped on its side with its legs kicking.
It lay still.
Nobody breathed.
I stared at the dog, and then at Hadrian's right hand.
He had held that hand over the cup when he knocked it, and I had not seen what fell from his fingers.
I had not put anything in that tea.
He knew it.
He had known me for ten years, and he knew exactly what I would and would not do.
"Seize her," the Regent whispered, and blood ran down his chin.
Two guards took my arms.
My satchel hit the floor, and herbs scattered across the marble.
I looked at Hadrian and kept my voice flat.
"Why?" I said.
He would not look at me.
"Hang her at dawn," he said. "On the Ember steps, where all of Halvard can see."
Every lord in the room agreed with his silence.
I could have burned the hall down.
The fire was there, banked in my palms, hot as a kiln, and I clenched my fists to hold it in.
If I let it out now, they would know who I was, and I would die with the dragon still in chains.
"One moment."
The voice came from the back of the hall, unhurried and rough as a gravel road.
A broad man in a grey northern cloak walked down the center aisle with a scar through his left eyebrow.
I had seen him at the edge of the crowd all evening, saying nothing and drinking less.
"Warden Bracken," the Regent rasped. "This is not your matter."
"It is, if she's my wife."
The words landed.
The Warden stopped beside me and looked at the guards until they let go of my arms.
"The March charter says I must be married by the end of the Midwinter feast," he said. "The feast ends at dawn."
He turned his head to me, and his brown eyes were calm.
"A Warden's wife cannot be tried without the Warden's word," he said. "March law. You can check."
Nobody in the hall moved.
"I watched that hound drink," he told the Regent. "I also watched the Marshal's hand over the cup. Ask him what he dropped."
Hadrian said nothing, and his jaw tightened.
Torin Bracken looked at me.
"Hang tomorrow or marry tonight, healer," he said. "Pick."
I thought of the dragon under the floor, and of the man who had sold me, standing three paces away.
"I'll marry you," I said.
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