What We Chose to Burn

"Give me the breath we planned," I called. "Let me try."

His gaze dropped to my sleeve.

The queen tightened her hand.

"What have you brought into my court?"

I looked at the woman who had taught me to apologize before asking a question. Up close, I could see a fine tremor at the corner of her mouth. Ronan's threat had frightened her.

She could lose the fire. For the first time, she knew it.

"A knife," I said.

Her other hand closed around my arm before I could draw it.

"You foolish girl."

She shoved me against the ceremonial chair. Pain struck my hip. A guard stepped forward, but the queen ordered him to keep his eyes on Ronan.

He had risen another inch. White fire lashed his shoulders.

"You would betray the woman who gave you everything?" she whispered.

I tried to pull my wrist free. She was stronger than I remembered.

"You fed me," I said. "You clothed me. You also planned to kill me. I have spent enough time trying to make the first two things excuse the third."

"Your parents left you with nothing."

"My father left me a name you needed to open your locks."

Her expression told me how much that had mattered.

I turned toward the square.

"My marriage was witnessed at the border hall. I understood the oath. I chose Ronan Blackthorn. I have come here willingly, and I have never been under his enchantment."

The queen shook me. "Be silent."

The words carried too. People in the front rows had stopped pretending not to listen.

"You cannot call me willing only when I obey you," I said.

She struck me.

The blow was small compared with everything she had already done. It still shocked me. My head turned, my cheek stung, and the crowd went quiet enough for me to hear the fountains.

In the square, Ronan roared.

The sound hit the platform like a storm. The queen staggered, and her fingers slipped on my wrist.

I dropped to my knees.

Mara's knife slid into my palm. I caught the sagging ribbon and drove the blade through its gold stitching.

It resisted as if I were cutting wet leather. Heat raced up the knife. The queen grabbed my hair, wrenching my head back.

I saw the fallen silver stand beside my knee. I trapped the ribbon against its broken edge and pulled with both hands.

The last threads parted.

Every fountain stopped.

For one silent heartbeat, the crown went dark.

Ronan stood.

He put his hand over his heart and called in a language I had read but never heard spoken by anything free.

The red stone cracked.

The queen released my hair to clutch the crown. Fire spilled between her fingers. She tried to force the broken halves together, her face twisting with the effort.

A stream of gold tore out of it.

It crossed the square and struck Ronan in the chest.

His body bowed. I felt the answering force through my ring, so fierce it drove the breath from my lungs.

The white circle broke.

Black wings opened where a man had been standing.

I fell backward against the chair. All around me, people screamed and ran. Ronan rose above the square in a storm of dark scales and unfolding limbs, vast enough to blot out the cathedral windows.

I had known he was a dragon.

Knowing had been a small, tame thing compared with this.

His claws struck the paving stones. A wing swept over the platform, sheltering it from falling masonry. His head turned toward me, and those impossible golden eyes found mine.

I was terrified.

I also knew him.

"I am here," I said, although he could scarcely have heard me.

His gaze moved to the mark on my cheek.

Heat gathered in his throat.

The queen crawled toward the fallen crown. I caught her wrist before she could reach it. She stared at me, furious and suddenly very human.

"You will let him burn us all."

I looked up at Ronan.

His wings trembled with the effort of holding them clear of the crowd. People were fleeing through the northern arch. Soldiers blocked the southern gate, uncertain whether to fight or run.

I stood on the chair so he could see me above the platform.

"The altar," I shouted. "The binding runs beneath it."

His head turned.

For a terrible instant, I saw how easy it would be. One sweep of fire across the palace. Fourteen years of pain answered in seconds.

Then he lowered his body between the platform and the cathedral doors.

His tail moved aside, opening a path for the fleeing people.

He breathed fire into the empty altar.

The flame was white at its center, edged with gold. It burned through the old binding stones, following the conduit beneath the square. Lines of fire flashed along the carved channels and went out one by one.

No one stood inside them now.

The cathedral roof shuddered. Ronan folded a wing over me as broken tiles rained down. I crouched beneath it with the queen beside me and smelled smoke, hot stone, and the familiar warmth of his skin transformed into something ancient.

He stopped before the fire reached the nave.

For a moment, all I could hear was rubble settling.

Then the guard beside the platform lowered his sword.

Another followed.

Cedric had pulled free of his escort in the confusion. He stood at the southern gate, shouting for the soldiers to open it. When one refused, he took the man's keys and did it himself.

The crowd poured through.

The queen tried to stand. The captain of her palace guard stepped onto the platform and caught her arm.

"Release me," she ordered.

He looked from the ruined crown to the blackened altar.

"You told us this was a reunion."

"I am your sovereign."

"And there are witnesses from every border house in that square. You will answer before the council."

She looked at me then, expecting something. Gratitude. Fear. The old instinct to make trouble disappear before it reached her.

I let her go with him.

Ronan lowered his head toward the platform.

Up close, one of his eyes was almost as large as my face. Thin scars crossed the scales above his heart. I reached toward his jaw and stopped before touching it.

"May I?"

He closed his eye and brought his head beneath my hand.

The scales were warm and smooth at their centers, ridged along the edges. His breath moved the loose hair around my face.

I leaned my forehead against him. My knees had begun to shake too badly to hold me.

"You took the breath," I whispered.

He made a low sound that traveled through my bones.

Black scales shifted beneath my fingers. I stepped back as his wings folded inward and the vast outline of him contracted through shimmering heat.

Then Ronan knelt in front of me, human again, bare and trembling.

I pulled the cloak from the ceremonial chair and wrapped it around him.

He caught my face between his hands.

"Your cheek."

"I will complain about it later."

He gave a rough, disbelieving laugh. Then his mouth was on mine, and I held him with both arms, feeling the strong, unbroken beat beneath his skin.

Mara arrived with the scouts before I was ready to let go. One of them had a broken arm. The rest carried the expression of people who had seen a mountain move and were still deciding whether they should have expected it.

She checked Ronan first, then me, then the band of scorched skin beneath my ring.

"I gave you a knife," she said. "I did not advise either of you to improvise a siege."

I handed her the blade. Its edge had melted near the tip.

She sighed and tucked it away.

We could not leave immediately. The wards along the border had flickered when the crown broke. Ronan sent dragons to the surviving eastern houses. Oren and the wardkeepers gathered for the talks carried word west, while the council ordered the diverted wagons sent back to the towns.

For three days, we remained in a guesthouse beyond the palace grounds. Ronan slept so deeply the first night that I lay awake with my palm against his chest, reassuring myself of what had changed.

On the fourth morning, Cedric asked to see me.

I met him in the garden. Ronan waited inside, close enough for me to know he was there.

Cedric wore no sword. He had surrendered his command pending the council's inquiry into the imprisonment and the wedding.

"I have given them my account," he said. "All of it."

"Good."

He nodded, accepting the absence of comfort.

"I knew what would happen to you. I told myself everyone would suffer if I refused. I never gave you the choice I kept making for myself."

I looked at the man I had once loved. I was glad he had finally said it plainly. I was tired that it had taken so long.

"I won't tell you it is all right."

"I know."

"But I hope you keep telling the truth when it becomes less easy than saying it to me."

He bowed his head.

I left him in the garden.

That evening, Ronan found me on the guesthouse balcony. The city was dark except for ordinary lamps. Without stolen fire lighting every window, I could see the stars above the rooftops.

He stood beside me for a long time before speaking.

"There is something I should have told you before now."

I turned toward him.

"Our marriage can be ended," he said. "If we both speak the release, the sanctuary oath dissolves. I could not safely offer that while their claim threatened you. That claim is gone now."

He looked down at my ring, then back at me.

"You no longer need to be my wife to stay alive."