The Healer Bride: Awakening the Ruined Dragon King novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Decree
A royal messenger dissolves Sorrel's betrothal in front of forty guests and gives her to the Ruined Dragon King instead; she asks for the pen, and the king's seal glows under her palm.
Forty guests sat down to Sorrel Ashgrove's betrothal feast, and every fork stopped when the king's messenger walked in.
He wore royal blue and carried a scroll sealed with a golden dragon claw.
Nobody at the long table spoke.
Sorrel set down her knife beside the goose she had been carving and rubbed her left palm against her skirt.
"Is it the burning again?" her younger sister whispered from the next chair.
She had been at Sorrel's elbow all day, refilling her cup and straightening her sleeves.
"It's nothing," Sorrel said. "It wakes me at the third bell every night. It has since I was seventeen, and it's gone by morning."
"I'll bring you the cooling oil after dinner."
"Thank you."
The prince sat on her other side in his velvet doublet, with one hand resting on the table near hers.
He had found her in the herb garden at dawn.
"Whatever happens today," the prince had said, "I will stand beside you."
It was an odd thing to say about a feast, and she had thanked him anyway.
The messenger stopped in the middle of the hall and broke the seal.
"By the word of Ronan Aldermere, King of Caerlund," he read, and his voice carried to the rafters, "the betrothal of Prince Edmund and Lady Sorrel Ashgrove is ended this day."
A glass fell somewhere and rolled across the floor.
"The Lady Sorrel is commanded instead to be the king's own bride. She will be married at the Ember Keep in seven days."
The hall stayed silent for a long moment.
Then a woman near the door said, very quietly, "The Ruined King."
Everyone in Caerlund knew what the court said about him.
Six years ago he had fallen out of the sky in the Ashfall war, and his dragon fire had never come back.
He lived alone in the northern mountains, and the court swore that three healers had gone up to treat him and not one had come down.
Sorrel looked at the man beside her.
Edmund was studying his plate.
He had not asked to see the scroll, and he did not look surprised.
"My brother's word is law," he said at last, to the goose.
"Edmund." Her voice came out steadier than she expected. "You said you would stand beside me."
"I am standing beside you," he said. "I just can't do anything about it."
He finally looked up, and his blue eyes were sorry and calm.
Her father rose so fast his chair scraped.
Lord Perrin's face had gone the color of tallow.
"Sorrel, listen to me. Go to the Queen Mother tonight. Kneel to Helene. Beg her to speak to the king. She has always been fond of you."
"Father."
"Beg her, girl."
Linden's hand closed over hers under the table.
"You don't have to go," her sister said. "I'll ride to Thornhall myself and plead for you. I'll kneel as long as it takes."
Her brown eyes were wet and her fingers were warm.
It was a kind offer, and Sorrel almost took it.
Then she thought of the mountain.
A man had been dying up there for six years, and every person in this hall had decided that was somebody else's business.
She was the best healer in the north, and she knew it without any pride.
She did not want a prince who looked at his goose while she was given away.
She did not want to kneel to a queen who had not asked her first.
So Sorrel stood up.
The room watched her do it.
"I accept the king's command," she said.
"Sorrel," her father said.
"I will not beg anyone for a betrothal I never chose." She turned to the messenger. "Where do I sign?"
The messenger blinked.
"My lady, the custom is a signature and then the palm. The bride's hand goes on the seal so the king knows she has agreed."
"Then bring the pen."
He brought it, and a page held the scroll flat on the head table among the plates.
She wrote her name under the king's.
Edmund's fingers moved slightly toward her sleeve and then stopped.
Sorrel set her left palm on the dragon claw.
The wax was cold for a breath.
Then it turned warm, then hot, and a line of gold light ran along the claw's edge and filled every groove of the seal.
The burn in her palm woke, three bells early, and did not hurt.
The messenger dropped to one knee on the stone floor, and the parchment under her hand began to smoke.
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