The hall stayed quiet. Even the fire in the trench seemed to be holding its breath.
Then heat crawled up my palm, and I looked down at my own hand.
A mark was burning into my palm. Black lines, curling like something asleep.
It hurt. But only the way a hard truth hurts.
Severin: The fire has spoken. She wears my son's mark. She is bound to Prince Vaelor, bride of Duskhold.
Severin: Say it out loud, girl, so the whole court hears it from you.
Calista: I'm his bride. Fine.
Calista: But I didn't come here for a wedding. My uncle sold me like a sack of wool, and everyone in this room knows it.
Yrsa: Sold is right. Three hundred gold for a dock whore's daughter.
Yrsa: You should thank the fire. It's the only thing in this hall that didn't notice what you are.
Calista: And yet the fire chose me over you, princess.
Calista: All that blue blood, and it still didn't want you.
Her hand shot out and crushed my marked palm. The new burns screamed all the way up my arm.
Yrsa: One more word and I'll cut this mark off your hand myself.
Severin: Enough. She is bound, and a mark cannot be cut.
Severin: Take her to my son's chamber. She sleeps beside him tonight.
Two guards took an arm each. They didn't need to be gentle, and they weren't.
My heels scraped over the stone the whole way out of the hall.
Yrsa: Look close, all of you. This is what a dragon bride looks like.
Yrsa: A cut lip, a stolen name, and a husband who can't open his eyes.
The servants laughed. Not loud. Just enough so I'd hear it.
The doors opened on a room as cold as a tomb.
Prince Vaelor lay on the bed, still as a carving. Black hair on the pillow, no color in his face at all.
The guards let go, and I hit the floor on my knees.
Yrsa: Pray he never wakes, wool girl.
Yrsa: Because if he does, he'll take one look at you and wish the fire had finished the job.
The door shut. The lock turned over with a sound I felt in my teeth.
And I was alone with a sleeping legend and a mark that would not stop burning.
Timo would be coughing in that cold room right now, counting down his last three days of medicine.
I had traded my whole life for that, and nobody in this mountain had paid a thing for it but me.
I got up and looked at my husband from the foot of the bed.
He was handsome the way a storm is handsome from a window. Safe, because of the glass.
Calista: So you're my husband. You and that sleeping face.
Calista: I've been married to worse. Not by much, but worse.
I turned to try the door.
Then something closed around my wrist, hard as iron and warm as a living thing.
Prince Vaelor had not moved. His eyes were still shut. His breathing had not changed.
But his hand was clamped around my wrist, and it did not let go.