Disabled Dragon King's Substitute Bride: Dawn Phoenix Awakening novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Ashfall Gate

The clan stares at the bride, Ruvane mocks her, and Maelis walks the long stair on her own feet, then takes her vows before the clan and the king tells her she will pay tonight.

The stair to Cinderkeep had three hundred steps, and every one was cut from black stone.

Two guards stepped forward with a carrying chair for the bride.

"No," Maelis said.

The nearest guard blinked. "Lady, it is custom. The climb takes a woman an hour."

"Then I will take an hour."

She gathered the heavy skirts in both fists and started up.

The clan lined both walls to watch.

Nobody cheered, and nobody jeered. They only stared, hundreds of amber eyes following her.

Behind her came the soft rolling of wheels on stone.

Torvald was not being carried either.

Four men lifted his chair step by step, and he sat in it, looking straight ahead.

By the hundredth step her calves burned.

By the two-hundredth her slippers were soaked through with blood from a blister.

She did not slow down.

Near the top a man stepped out of the crowd and stopped in front of her.

He was lean and handsome, with red-brown hair and a captain's gold chain across his chest.

"So the little river princess walks," he said. "Torvald will be pleased. He likes things that cannot run."

"And you are?"

"Ruvane Ashenreach. His cousin. His captain." He smiled, and the smile did not reach his eyes. "I lead the war host while my cousin sits."

"Then you must be very busy."

Someone in the crowd laughed, then stopped.

Ruvane's smile thinned. "Dragon brides last a month, I'm told. The last two wept in the first week."

"I don't weep in front of men who talk this much."

She stepped around him and kept climbing.

The top of the stair opened into a great hall of black pillars.

A fire pit so wide a cart could have turned in it burned at the center.

The flames were low and gold.

The hall smelled of smoke and iron, and of something sweeter underneath, like burning pine.

A priest waited at the fire with a stone cup.

Torvald's chair was set down before him.

Maelis stood where she was told, and the clan filled in behind her until the air felt thick.

"We take vows by fire," the priest said. "The bride kneels."

Maelis looked at the stone floor.

Then she looked at Ruvane, who stood at the front with his arms folded and his eyebrows raised, waiting for her to break.

"I'll kneel to my husband," she said. "Not to a room."

The priest hesitated.

"Let her stand," said Torvald.

His voice was low and rough, and it carried to the back wall without effort.

The hall went silent.

He rolled his chair forward until his knees nearly touched her skirt.

Then he held out his hand, palm up, to take hers.

His hand was enormous. The knuckles were crossed with old burns.

She laid her cold hand in it.

His fingers closed, and warmth ran up her wrist.

She almost pulled away.

She did not.

"By fire and by name," the priest said. "Torvald Ashenreach, Dragon King of Emberhold, takes this woman."

"I take her," said Torvald.

"Maelis Hartwen, of the river house of Corrin, takes this man."

"I take him," Maelis said.

Her voice shook only once, on the last word.

The priest tipped the stone cup, and a thread of ember-wine ran across their joined hands.

It did not burn her.

She noticed that, and put it away to think about later.

"It is done," the priest said.

Nobody clapped.

Ruvane was the first to speak, and he said it loud enough for the whole hall.

"A bride who cannot be carried and a husband who cannot carry her. Emberhold is lucky."

A few of the younger warriors snorted.

Torvald did not move.

But the fire in the pit rose, a hand's width, and every man in the front row took a half-step back.

"Captain," Torvald said, very softly. "Tomorrow, you will stand watch on the Ash Stair from dawn."

"For what offense?"

"For the one you just made. Go."

Ruvane's jaw tightened. He bowed, shallow as a blade, and left the hall.

Her shoulders came down.

Torvald turned his head and looked up at her.

For a moment, he looked almost curious.

Then the curiosity went out of his face.

"Do not mistake that for kindness," he said. "I punished him for insulting my name, not for insulting you."

"I didn't ask you to."

"No. You didn't." His thumb moved once across her knuckles. "My servants will take you to my chamber."

"Your chamber."

"A wife sleeps where her husband sleeps." The amber in his eyes burned low. "Tonight you pay your father's debt, Maelis."

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