Chapter 3: Into the Bridal Chamber, With a Sword

Alexander POV

At nine o'clock sharp, the poison woke up.

It was a punctual guest, never late. First the tingling in my fingertips, then my arms. Then my blood began to scald, as though someone were pouring molten iron into my veins. The dragon inside me started to turn over, scraping its claws along my ribs, ramming its head against my chest. It wanted out. It wanted something to bite, something to tear open.

I sat in my wheelchair watching the snow. Beneath my cuff the black scales had already crept past my wrist. Three years ago they had been gold. Back then I could fly from Emberhold to the North Sea in a single breath. Now whether I could stand up out of this chair depended on the day's luck.

"Talk," Ben said, crouched in the snow, flipping a dagger between his fingers. "Who sent you?"

Kneeling before him was the coachman who drove for the Vance family. He hadn't gone back with the carriage; he'd circled around to the back wall and tried to climb over. Beside him sprawled a fat woman, the Vances' housekeeper, who had lost her way on my estate and stumbled straight into Shadows' arms.

The moment the coachman saw her he shouted, "It's her! My lord, she's the one who sent me!"

"You liar!" the woman shrieked. "It was that bride! She was meant to marry the Crown Prince — she was married off here to spy on His Highness's health! Prince Julian arranged this match himself. Lay a hand on me and you're crossing the Crown Prince—"

"Julian?"

The dragon laughed low in my chest. I turned my head. She saw my eyes and went rigid. I knew what she was seeing: a pair of gold, slit pupils, probably shot through with blood by now.

"My nephew? The one who can't even breathe a decent flame?"

I lifted one finger. On the rooftops, along the wall, in the shadows of the trees, twenty figures in black dropped silently into the snow and knelt on one knee. My Shadows. Half of them had left after I was poisoned; the half that stayed would kneel at my coffin even if I died tomorrow.

"Since you trust my nephew so much," I said, "put her in a box and deliver her to Julian. Cut her smaller. She'll fit."

She let out a shriek, long and shrill, her eyes rolled back, and she dropped into the snow.

Frightening people is tedious. But it bought me a little less noise, and that was worth it.

The Shadows dragged the two away and brought up a third — gray clothes, the witness who'd sat in the last row at the ceremony.

"Caught him climbing the wall," Ben said, handing me a slip of paper. "He was in a hurry to get a message to the Crown Prince's residence."

There was one line on the paper, scrawled carelessly: The scales lit up. Not just gold — silver too.

I stared at that line for a long time. The Vances carry gold dragon blood. Their daughters would only ever grow gold scales.

"You saw it yourself?"

"I saw it." Ben swallowed. "And, my lord... Cinder was snoring in her arms."

Impossible. Cinder is my bonded beast. It barely tolerates me. The old dragon books say that in a bond-mating, scales light only for blood that matches. In three hundred years, no one has actually seen it happen. And no one at all has seen silver.

This note would never reach Julian. But today, more than one person had seen that light.

My dear nephew probably thought I was sick enough that I couldn't even guard my back wall. One bonding ceremony, and he'd sent me a bride, a coachman, a housekeeper, and six "witnesses." He wanted to know how many breaths I had left.

The Anchor Bride was my royal brother's idea. An old custom that hadn't worked in three hundred years, and enough to let every dragon see: look, the King did his utmost for his dying brother.

Julian was counting on something else. If I tore the bride apart tonight while the poison was in me, the whole country would know the Black Prince had gone completely mad. By the Flame Law, the crown belongs to the strongest gold dragon — but a mad dragon can never issue a Sky Trial.

Honestly, I wasn't sure he'd lose. Tonight's poison was worse than usual. My hand was shaking; the veins on the back of it stood out like cords.

"My lord," Ben said under his breath, "shall I fetch someone from the dungeon?"

Meaning: bring up someone who deserved to die anyway, and let the dragon in me see blood. It had been that way for three years.

"No," I said. "Go to the west wing. Fetch my sword."

When the door opened, a plate clattered against the table inside.

The bride stood at the table, one hand steadying a plate about to slide off the edge, the other clutching half a slice of cake. Her veil was askew, covering half her face. She didn't move, like a rabbit caught in a lamp's beam.

I pushed the wheelchair over and stopped in front of her.

The dragon was roaring. It wanted blood. This was a thing the enemy had sent; tear her open and I could sleep well tonight—

Then I smelled it. Faint. Not perfume, not powder. Like linen sheets dried in the sun, like rain falling on warm stone, with a trace of honey sweetness.

The dragon inside me stopped. It stopped ramming, stopped scraping. Like a cat catching a familiar scent, it slowly lay down.

My blood was cooling.

I didn't believe it. I rolled the chair back three feet, and the fire immediately surged up from my soles and the dragon's head snapped up. I pushed forward a little, and it lay down again.

Not a trick of the mind. It was her.

Perhaps some drug, perhaps a secret art I'd never heard of. Julian doesn't have the brains for it, but someone at his side does.

And yet for the first time in three years, while the poison was in me, my head was clear.

The smell was strange, though — muffled, like something behind a thick cloth. As if something were smothering most of her scent inside her.

I stared at the hand holding the cake. Small, the knuckles covered in chilblains, a fresh bruise on the back of it, pinched there by fingernails.

The eldest daughter of a dragon-blood family, with the hands of a laundry maid?

Just then, from behind the veil, came a cautious sound of chewing. She was eating. In front of me, with a sword in my hand, she stuffed the last of the cake into her mouth.

Behind me Ben made a strange noise, as if someone had grabbed him by the throat.

I lifted her veil with the tip of my sword.

The cheap rouge was painted too red, like a child who'd knocked over the paint pots. But the face beneath the rouge—

Ben gasped. I said nothing, but I'll admit I paused too. Her eyes were large, amber, wet, with startlingly long lashes. Her cheeks bulged like a squirrel hoarding nuts. There was no fear in her eyes, only a little grievance, and an undisguised longing for that plate of cake.

She chewed twice and got stuck. The cake was too dry; she pounded her chest, tears welling.

"Bring water," I said.

"...What?" Ben said.

I looked at him, and he ran out at once.

A cup of hot tea came in. She gave Ben a grateful look — why Ben? — took it, gulped, and burned herself, her eyes going red.

"No one's going to take it from you."

She drank it in small sips, finally got it down, and nodded solemnly at Ben. My captain of the guard, who had taken a wyvern's head in the North, now had his ears going red because a bride had thanked him.

She finally raised her head and looked at me.

"S-sorry. Are... are you my... h-husband?"

A stutterer. The spy Julian sent me was a stutterer. Either she was the best actress I'd ever seen, or—

"If I am?" I ran my fingers slowly along the hilt.

She looked at me, then at the plate of cake on the table.

"Then... you're not in a hurry... for the w-wedding night?"

My lashes moved.

"If you're not in a hurry," she asked very seriously, "c-can I... have another piece?"

I didn't answer. My gaze fell to her collar. A thin silver chain lay against her collarbone and disappeared into her clothes. Whatever was muffling her scent was there.

I lifted the chain with the tip of my sword.

She flinched back as if burned, both hands clamped over her chest, cake crumbs scattering on the floor.

"N-no." Her voice shook, but her feet didn't retreat. "Th-this was my mother's. You... you can tear me apart, but you can't take it."

Interesting. A moment ago she'd feared the sword, feared me, feared being torn apart, and she hadn't stepped back once. Now, over an old chain, she was bargaining with a dragon.

Behind me, Ben's voice changed.

"My lord... your hand."

I looked down. On the back of the hand holding the sword, at the edge of a black scale, a thin line of gold was showing through.

Three years. This was the first time I had seen my own color come back.