The Healer Bride: Awakening the Ruined Dragon King novel · Chapter 4 of 24
Chapter 4: The Cup
On the fifth evening of the marriage, the Queen Mother came up the mountain road in a closed carriage with six outriders.
Sorrel watched it from the east tower window with a bowl of salve in her hands.
The black vein on the king's chest was a hand's width shorter than it had been on their wedding night.
He had not said so.
He had only stood in front of the cracked shaving mirror that morning for a long while.
"Helene," he said now, behind her, in a voice with no color in it. "She has never come in six years."
"Then she's worried about you."
"She is curious."
He put on his coat and went down the stairs without looking at her.
Supper was laid in the long hall, and the steward had lit every lamp.
The Queen Mother sat at the king's right hand in a plum gown, with her silver hair coiled high.
On his left sat a gentleman of the council in a fur-trimmed cloak, who had been introduced only as "the lord from Thornhall."
Beside the Queen Mother sat the royal physician, a thin man in black with a leather case on his knee.
"My dear girl." Helene took both of Sorrel's hands across the table. "I was so sorry about Edmund. He is quite heartbroken. But I said to him, the king's word is the king's word, and you were so brave to sign."
"Thank you, Your Grace."
"And you look well. The mountain agrees with you."
"The mountain agrees with the work," Sorrel said. "It's the work I came for."
"Of course it is."
Helene's smile was warm and unhurried, and her thumbs patted the backs of Sorrel's hands once before she let go.
Sorrel found that she liked her.
It was a strange discovery, and she put it away to think about later.
The meal was lamb and barley.
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