The Bride and the Ashen Knight novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Kindle

At the wedding feast Prince Darian says one word and Garrick drops to his knees before the court; Sigrid hauls him up and walks them both out.

The wedding feast had a roast swan, forty candles on every table, and no one who would sit within two chairs of my husband.

Garrick Marsden sat at my right hand with his back very straight.

He ate slowly.

I kept my eyes on my plate and my mind on his wrist.

My name.

Cut into his skin in a script that no one but me could read.

I had not said a word about it, because I did not know what the word meant.

A wedding gift?

A threat?

A cruel joke?

"You don't have to talk to me," Garrick said quietly, to the roast.

"I'm not talking to you. I'm thinking."

"About how to get out of it?"

"About whether the swan is dry."

He glanced at me, and that small movement of his mouth came back.

"It is dry," he said. "I would not say so to the cook."

"The cook is my brother's. He'd want it said."

The smile grew a little.

It changed his whole face, and for one breath I forgot to be afraid.

Then a spoon rang against a goblet at the high table.

Darian stood.

My brother was thirty, golden-haired and handsome, with rings on every finger and a voice made for toasts.

"My lords and ladies," he said. "A toast to my sister, who has finally found a man who will hold still while she reads him."

The hall laughed.

I felt my face burn, and under the table Garrick's hand closed slowly into a fist.

"And to the bridegroom," Darian went on. "The hero of Greywold. The man who gave the kingdom everything he had."

He raised his cup, and his smile slid sideways.

"Come, Ser. Show us how the realm's debt looks on its knees."

Nobody breathed.

Even the musicians stopped.

Garrick did not move.

"I will not," he said, very low.

I saw the muscle jump along his jaw.

"Oh, I think you will," said Darian pleasantly.

He set down his cup.

"Kindle," he said. "Kneel."

The grey lines on Garrick's neck lit up.

I saw it with my own eyes.

Thin threads of orange glowed under the ash-colored skin, from his collar to his jaw.

His whole body shook.

I watched him fight it.

His hands gripped the edge of the table until his knuckles whitened and the wood creaked.

Then his legs gave out under him.

He went down on both knees on the stone floor of the great hall, in front of three hundred people, with his head bowed.

No one gasped.

That was the worst part.

They had been waiting for it.

Darian leaned back in his chair.

"There," he said. "That's what I call loyalty."

My ears were ringing.

I had seen the line that glowed first, on the side of his throat.

Three small runes, bright as ember.

KINDLE.

It was written on him.

The word was a key, and my brother had just turned it in front of the whole court.

I stood up so fast my chair fell backward.

"Sigrid," my father said from the throne. "Sit."

I did not sit.

I walked around the table and took my husband's right hand, the one without the grey, and pulled.

"Get up," I said.

"Princess," he said through his teeth. "Do not."

"Get up, Garrick."

He was so heavy.

It was like trying to lift a door.

Then he moved, a little, and a little more.

He came up against his own will, with a sound I never wanted to hear again.

I turned to the throne.

I had read the treaty three times that morning, because no one else in my family had.

"Article nine," I said loudly.

"The bride may leave the feast with her husband at any hour, and be escorted to his house."

I looked at my father.

"I wish to leave now."

My father blinked.

There was a rustle all through the hall, and I knew he was weighing the scene against the shame of saying no.

Darian laughed.

"She's keen," he said. "Let them go, Father. The ash can't wait."

My father waved a hand.

I did not look at my brother.

I put my arm through Garrick's and walked us down the length of the hall, past every fan and every whisper.

He walked beside me stiffly, his arm shaking against mine.

I did not let go until the great doors closed behind us.

In the cold stone corridor, under a single torch, he stopped and braced one hand on the wall.

His eyes were closed.

"I'm sorry," he said. "You should not have seen that."

"You don't have to apologize to me."

"I do."

He opened his eyes, and they were dark and very tired.

"That word," Garrick said. "Whatever he calls you, whatever he asks, do not ever say it to me."

I stared at him.

I had only just read it.

I had not said it yet.

But the way he said it told me he was afraid I might.

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