What My Hero Had Done

"How do you know?" I asked.

The flame opened above our hands. Two clear strands of gold wound together, holding their shape as Mara lifted the bowl away.

"Witnessed and willing," she said. "The marriage stands."

Cedric did not look at her. He stared at Ronan's chest.

"The wound," I said again. "How did you know what it should do?"

"Elara, this isn't the place."

Ronan's fingers loosened beneath mine. He was giving me room to pull away.

I held on.

"You were there when they took his fire."

Cedric swallowed. "I was a junior officer."

"That was not my question."

"Yes. I was there."

The last flame went out.

"Did you hold the knife?"

His expression gave me the answer before his mouth did.

"The queen ordered it. You have no idea what that power can do in the wrong hands."

Ronan stood very still beside me. I could feel the effort in his hand.

"Whose hands would be the right ones?" I asked. "Yours?"

"We kept the kingdom safe."

"And the wedding?"

"His remaining fire was unstable. The queen needed a bloodline that could open the old binding without destroying it. There would have been war if we failed."

His explanations came more easily now. I wondered how often he had practiced them.

"You knew I would die."

He looked at my bandaged palm.

"I petitioned for another way."

"And when there wasn't one, you chose the orange cake."

His face crumpled. For a moment, I saw the man who used to sit beside me in the library while I worked. The sight hurt more than his excuses.

"I loved you," he said.

I took my hand from Ronan's and worked the engagement ring over my swollen knuckle. It caught. I had to twist hard enough to hurt.

Cedric moved as if to help.

"Stay there."

I set the ring on the border line between us.

"Then you should be relieved I am alive."

The envoy shifted, looking toward the exit. Cedric ignored him.

"You cannot build a life here. You don't know these people."

"I didn't know you either. Apparently, I can learn."

Ronan made a quiet sound beside me. I could not tell whether it was pain or approval.

Cedric reached for the ring, then stopped.

"Ask him what happens when he takes back the fire in the queen's crown. Ask him who protects the border towns when the wards fail."

"That is enough," Ronan said.

Cedric looked at him. "You know I am right."

For the first time, I felt Ronan's anger as something physical: the air heating, a cup ringing faintly against its saucer. His eyes brightened until I could scarcely see their pupils.

He did not deny it.

Cedric bowed to me with a stiffness that made a mockery of all the times I had wanted his attention.

"When you need me, send word. Whatever you think of me now, I will come."

"If I need your help," I said, "I will ask for it. Until then, stop arriving to decide things for me."

He left the ring on the table.

I watched the doors close behind the delegation. My knees began to shake.

Ronan noticed. He did not touch me until I reached for his arm.

Outside, cold air struck my face. I gulped it as if I had been underwater.

"Is it true? About the wards?"

"They are fed by the stolen fire."

"And if you reclaim it?"

"They will need another source."

I looked up at him.

"Will you help find one?"

He glanced toward the hall where Cedric had stood.

"I spent fourteen years keeping her walls standing while she cut pieces from me. You will have to forgive my lack of enthusiasm."

I flinched. He saw that too.

"I am not asking you to bleed for her," I said.

"No. You are asking about people who were fortunate enough never to learn where their safety came from. I understand the distinction. I cannot give you a comfortable answer today."

The honesty left me nowhere easy to put my fear.

We rode back to the keep in silence. He gave me his horse and traveled in a carriage at Mara's insistence. I was grateful not to have to sit against him while I tried to understand how many things could be true at once.

He had saved my life. He had been cruelly used. People I had known since childhood might suffer if he took back what belonged to him.

None of those facts canceled the others.

In my room, Nell asked whether I wanted supper. I told her I wasn't hungry. After she left, I sat on the floor beside the bed because getting onto it seemed to require a decision I could not make.

The wedding returned in pieces.

His hand on my shoulder. The priest turning my palm. Your name will be remembered.

I pressed my good hand over my mouth.

Someone knocked.

"Go away," I said.

"I can. Before I do, Nell is upset that you refused the pie. I have been sent to establish whether the offense is personal."

I laughed once, painfully.

"The pie has done nothing wrong."

"A relief. May I come in?"

I told him yes.

He entered carrying a plate, then stopped when he saw where I was sitting. He put the pie on the bedside table and lowered himself to the floor with an expression that suggested his physician would be furious.

"You should not be down here," I said.

"Neither should you. The room has excellent furniture."

For a while, we sat with our backs against the bed.

"I keep trying to remember when he decided," I said. "Whether he knew when he asked me to marry him. Whether he ever imagined actually living with me."

Ronan rested his forearms on his knees.

"Would an answer make it easier?"

"I don't know. I want one anyway."

"Then you may be angry that he has not given you one. You do not have to make that useful."

The words loosened something awful inside me.

"I was so relieved when he chose me," I whispered. "Everyone was always reminding me how fortunate I was to be allowed to stay. I thought marrying him meant I could finally stop being grateful."

My voice broke on the last word.

He moved his hand across the rug, palm upward, and left it between us.

I took it.

He did not tell me I was safe forever. He did not promise I would never be hurt again. He stayed while I cried, occasionally handing me a clean corner of his handkerchief as if he had unlimited corners to spare.

Later, when I had climbed into bed and he stood to leave, I caught his sleeve.

"Would you stay until I fall asleep?"

"Yes."

"You don't have to sit on the floor."

"An excellent amendment."

He moved the armchair beside the bed. I watched him stretch out his legs, careful of his chest, and fold his hands over his stomach.

"Ronan?"

His eyes opened.

"Thank you for believing me without the flame."

"You were quite persuasive with the knife."

I smiled into the pillow.

When I woke, gray light filled the room. His head rested against the chair, his hair falling over one eyebrow. An untouched blanket lay across his knees. One hand remained on the edge of my mattress, where I had fallen asleep holding it.

He had stayed long after I stopped being able to ask.