The Dragon King's Rejected Mate

Denied

They came for me before the sun did.

The guardsman from the night before stood in my doorway with a face that had obviously been ordered not to have one. "The Council is convened, my lady. You're to attend."

"Attend," I repeated. "Or be attended to?"

He didn't smile. I dressed in the grey gown the maid had brought — still a servant's color, still nobody's livery — and followed him through corridors that grew grander with every turn, stone giving way to marble, marble to gold leaf, until we reached doors taller than any I'd ever seen.

The Council chamber was round, which struck me as dishonest. Nothing about power is round. Power has corners, and I was about to be backed into all of them.

They'd put a chair in the center of the floor. One chair. I understood the message and sat in it anyway, spine straight, hands folded. Matron Ossa's voice in my head: keep your mouth shut. Pippa's: don't let them make you small. I split the difference.

The chamber smelled of old paper and older men. The chair was cold through the thin gown. I sat on my hands to stop them shaking and hoped no one noticed. Someone had left a cup on the floor by the door — porcelain, gold-rimmed, half full of something dark. Even the Council's leavings were richer than anything I'd ever owned. The High Councilor looked at me the way men like him look at ledgers — checking for errors. I met his gaze. Let him look.

The lords filed in — twelve of them, old men in old colors, dragons in tailored wool. And above them, on a dais of black stone, the King.

He didn't look at me.

The High Councilor rose. He had the kind of face that had never been surprised by anything, which meant he was about to enjoy surprising me.

"The law is clear," he said. "A girl claimed at the Choosing is bound to the Crown." A pause, precisely weighted. "But the law assumes a lawful Choosing. This girl is Unscented. A kitchen maid. The court requires—"

"The court requires patience," Kael said.

His voice cut the chamber in half. Still, he didn't look at me. He was watching the High Councilor the way you'd watch a stain.

"Your Majesty," the Councilor said carefully, "the succession—"

"—is my concern." Kael rose. The chamber went still in the way rooms do when something with teeth stands up. "The Choosing was..." A beat. His jaw worked. "...hasty."

The word was a slap.

Murmurs. Someone laughed — a short, surprised bark, quickly smothered. In the gallery above, Lady Seraphine Vayne sat golden and composed, and when our eyes met she smiled the particular smile of a woman watching a rival drown.

"The girl is claimed," Kael went on, each word deliberate, load-bearing. "What she is claimed for remains the Crown's decision. There will be no coronation. There will be no announcements. The court will not be rushed."

"Your Majesty is wise," the High Councilor said smoothly.

Wise. Ash on my tongue.

One of the younger lords leaned toward his neighbor, not quite whispering: "Hasty. Did you hear—"

I heard. Everyone heard. That was the point.

I kept my back straight and my hands still and my face empty, and I did not look at the King. Not once. That was the worst of it — worse than the laughter, worse than Seraphine's smile. Yesterday he had looked at me like I was the only thing in the room. Today I was furniture.

The session ended. The lords filed out, already forgetting me. I walked back through the palace between two guards, and the whispers trailed me down every corridor, a second shadow.

In the long gallery, a young court lady in rose silk stepped deliberately into my path. "Hasty," she said sweetly. "Did you hear?"

"I heard," I said. "You'll have to speak up, though. Obscurity doesn't carry."

Her smile flickered. "The King will come to his senses. Men always do."

"Then it's lucky," I said, "that I'm not waiting on his."

I walked on before she could answer, and I didn't let my shoulders shake until I was around the corner. Then I stood there with my forehead against the cool marble and breathed until the shaking stopped. Don't let them make you small, Pippa had said. I was trying. Saints, I was trying.

The day crawled. I sat in the small cold room, following the light's slow crawl across the cracked plaster, and at some point I made the ash-tea — my hands knew the measures better than my head did — and drank it to the bitter dregs.

Drink your tea, little wren.

"I am," I told the empty room. "Every morning. No matter what."

Night came. I didn't sleep. I lay on the narrow bed listening to the palace settle — a thousand small sounds from a building full of people who all wanted something — and then, past midnight, a different sound: the soft scrape of the balcony door.

I was on my feet before I was fully awake, my mother's comb in my fist, teeth out. It wouldn't stop a dragon. It barely managed my hair.

He came over the balcony rail the way water goes over a fall — no effort, no sound. Just suddenly there, in my room, in the dark, smelling of smoke and night air.

"Put that down," Kael said. "You'll hurt yourself."

"Come to hasten something?" My voice shook. I hated that it shook.

He stepped into the moonlight slanting through the shutters. His face gave nothing. "Are you hurt?"

"Only my pride. It'll scar."

"Good. Scars are useful." He moved closer, and with every step the air got heavier — my skin prickled, warmth coiling under my fingertips, something old stirring, and my own blood roaring in my ears. "I kept you alive today."

"You kept your crown today," I said. "Don't confuse the two."

"They're the same thing, little phoenix. That's the part you don't understand yet."

He was close now. Too close. My back found the wall — cold stone through the thin nightdress — and his hand rose, unhurried, his thumb tracing my jaw while his fingers curved around the side of my neck, finding my pulse unerringly.

It was hammering. Traitorous thing.

"Your heart is loud," he murmured.

"It's counting the ways to kill you."

His mouth almost smiled. Almost. He leaned in, and his breath was warm on my mouth, and the whole world narrowed to the space between us — heat and smoke and the drum of my own blood—

He went still.

His jaw tightened. His hand dropped. He stepped back, fast, putting the width of the room between us, and stood there with his chest heaving.

"Why are you here?" I whispered.

"Tomorrow," he said. "My study. Come alone."

He was at the balcony rail when he stopped. He didn't turn.

"Lock your door, little phoenix."

"Why?"

"Because not everyone in this palace will wait for an invitation."

Then he was gone, over the rail and into the dark, and I stood with my back against the cold wall, touching the side of my neck where his fingers had been, and hating that the skin still felt warm.