The Healer Bride: Awakening the Ruined Dragon King novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: The Ember Keep
She weds the king in a dark mountain hall, where he sets his terms and she sets hers; when he steps into the firelight every ember leans toward her.
The Ember Keep had no wedding guests, no flowers and no musicians.
It had one old steward in a grey coat, one long hall of black stone, and a hearth at the far end where a fire burned with no wood in it.
Sorrel stood in the middle of the floor in the gown she had ridden three days north in.
Her hands were cold, and her left palm was not.
"The king will speak to you from the dark end of the hall, my lady," the steward said. "He asks you not to take offense."
"Does he ask that of everyone?"
"You are the first to be asked, my lady. The others were not married to him."
She looked at the far end.
The firelight fell short of the back wall, and past that the hall was solid black.
Something stood in it.
She could not see a face, only the tall outline of a man with one shoulder held a little higher than the other.
"Lady Sorrel Ashgrove," said a voice from the dark.
It was low and dry and rough in the middle, the voice of a man who had not used it much.
"Your Grace."
"You signed the scroll yourself. The messenger wrote to say you signed it in front of the prince and forty guests."
"I did."
"Then you know what you signed. The court has told you what I am."
"It told me you burned three healers to ash."
"It tells the truth about the ash." There was a pause. "It lies about the cause."
The steward stared hard at the floor.
"I will tell you my terms before the vows, so you cannot say later that you were not told," the king said. "You are here to heal me. You may try whatever you like and I will not stop you."
"Good."
"I will not touch you unless you ask. Not in this hall, not in my bed, not on the stairs. You are a guest in my house who happens to carry my name."
Her face went hot.
It was an odd thing to feel offended by, but she did.
"And after the year?" she asked.
"After one year you may leave with my seal and a letter from my own hand that says the fault was mine. You will be free of me. Nobody in Caerlund will call you anything but the woman who did her duty."
"That's generous."
"It is not generous. It is fair."
Sorrel took a breath.
"Then you will hear mine, Your Grace."
The dark was quiet.
"I treat you where I decide and when I decide. You tell me the truth about what hurts, every time I ask. And you do not send me out of a room because you think it would be kinder."
"That is three terms."
"I'm a healer. We always have three."
A short sound came out of the dark.
It might have been a laugh, and it was cut off before it finished.
"Agreed," he said. "The vows."
The steward read them from a book so old its spine was held on with string.
Sorrel said hers in a clear voice.
The dark said his in a voice so low she lost the last words of each line.
When it was time for the ring, the steward looked at the king, and the king did not move.
"The ring is the one exception to my rule," the voice said. "It must be on your hand. I will need to come close."
"Then come."
A boot sounded on the black stone.
Another followed, slower, and the third came after a pause.
He came to the edge of the firelight and stopped with his face still in the shadow.
A hand came out.
It was a large hand, grey as slate across the back, with the knuckles ridged and the fingertips scaled.
It closed around her wrist with great care, and the heat of it went straight through her sleeve.
Her palm answered.
It flared so hard that she gasped, and the burning ran up her arm to the elbow and sank into her chest.
The iron candlestand beside them bent over at the neck and gave way.
It hit the floor with a clang that rang down the hall.
The hand did not let go.
"Does it hurt?" he said, hoarse.
"No."
"It should. It has hurt everyone else who stood this close."
"It doesn't hurt," she said, and heard how it sounded.
He slid the ring onto her finger, and it fit without being pushed.
He let go at once and took a step back.
"Your Grace," the steward said faintly. "The candlestand."
"I saw."
The king stepped forward into the light.
The left half of his face was grey ash scaled over fine black ridges, running down his neck and into his collar.
The right half was a man's face, hard-cut, tired and unshaven, with black hair falling across a gold-flecked eye.
He was looking at her without blinking.
In the hearth behind him, the flames with no wood under them bent toward Sorrel, every one, though no draft had stirred in the hall.
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