The Ashborn Crown Chapter 4 | Claimed Before the Courts
Tharion enters the royal banquet expecting humiliation or death. Instead, he finds himself publicly recognized as the consort of the Dragon Host's Heiress.
Tharion stiffened as the crack of a herald striking the ceremonial staff on the stone floor resonated just on the other side of the doors. The guards on either side pulled the tall doors open, perfectly framing him, Mr. and Mrs. Brenwick, Velara, Edric, and Loria.
This is it. Every head was turned to the door. He braced for the immediate retribution.
Then, in Draconic, the formal cadence rolled out, sonorous, deliberate, impossibly long.
“His Excellency, Veyrakh.”
Tharion felt a coldness wash over him as he froze mid-step. They’d actually arrived at the exact same time as the Flight Lord. Maybe I can convince Mr. Brenwick to withdraw, or at least quietly take a seat in the back. Maybe. Maybe everyone will be so busy marveling at the arrival, they’ll not notice us.
“Lord of the Obsidian Flight, High Warden of the Court of the Ember Flame, Keeper of the Ember Seal, Scion of Ash and Ember, Flame-Bearer of the Fallen Host, Harbinger of the Twilight War, Champion of the Crucible, Breaker of the Sky Siege, Ashen Warden of the Fallen Flame, Protector of the Ashborn, Speaker for the Old Flame.”
The herald continued as the family marched forward.
“Dareya, Flame-Touched Ashborn of the Calderin Bloodline, Lady of the Obsidian Flight and Keeper of the Fallen Flame, Warden-Consort of the Court of the Ember Flame, Shield of the Crucible and Shield of the Twilight War, Bonded Protector of the Ashborn and the Fallen Host.”
Tharion looked around, not seeing anyone else having entered the room. Had they already been inside and were just now being announced?
“Lady Velara, Heiress of the Obsidian Flight, First Daughter of the Court of the Ember Flame; Shield of the Crucible.”
Tharion blinked. His pulse hit his temples. He fought the instinct to take a step back, to flee back to the suite.
The herald continued, oblivious to Tharion’s panic.
“Tharion. Consort of the Heiress of the Obsidian Flight, First Son of the Crimson Scale Court; Champion of the Crucible.”
Tharion actually froze, locked into position. Father and I will not live this night. We have doomed Crimson Scale.
“Lord Edric of the Obsidian Flight, First Son of the Court of the Ember Flame; Lady Loria of the Obsidian Flight, First Daughter of the Court of the Ember Flame.”
Tharion’s legs felt like lead as he followed Velara down the long dining hall. The massive table gleamed under the chandeliers, every chair perfectly spaced, every place setting formal enough to give him hives. He kept his gaze forward, but every glance out of the corner of his eye made his chest tighten. He caught Kaelric’s eyes widening slightly as the family approached.
Velara’s father, the Flight Lord himself, stood arm-in-arm with her mother at the center of the table, his coat immaculate, black with the ceremonial sigil of the Obsidian Flight visible on the collar. Velara guided him to the seat beside her. He slid in carefully, trying not to look like he might bolt or vomit.
Her lips brushed his cheek in a light, teasing kiss. “Be calm,” she murmured, as if a whisper could somehow keep the world from ending.
Loria settled on his other side. Edric, eyeing the single empty chair at the end of the Crimson Scale side, moved there without hesitation, leaving Tharion next to Velara. The reasoning was obvious, and infuriatingly logical: Tharion should sit with Velara, and no one was going to risk placing a 19-year-old girl next to an unbonded male from another family.
Tharion’s eyes flicked toward the rest of the hall, catching glimpses of the other tables. Every High Warden, every minor court, every delegation within eyesight could see them. They were exposed. He swallowed hard, willing his pulse to slow.
“Relax,” Velara whispered again, sensing his tension. “It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”
Everything is not fine, Tharion thought, gripping the edge of his seat. He was still bracing for disaster, for fire or fury or centuries of whispered contempt. He glanced at her father, then her mother, then Velara. They were untouchably composed, as if the world’s conventions bent around them and he was the only idiot panicking. He exhaled slowly, but only slightly. The world had not ended yet. But he would be shocked if it didn’t feel like the room could consume him any second.
Tharion’s mind did not slow. He sat very still, his hands folded precisely in his lap, posture flawless. To anyone watching, he appeared the perfect young noble: composed, dignified, present.
But inside, his thoughts were a wildfire tearing through centuries of expectations.
This morning, my greatest fear was that I would not be noticed by the Flight Lord at all.
That I would stand among hundreds, offer a respectful bow, recite a carefully practiced honor-line, and hope, just hope, to receive even a glance in return.
He had rehearsed for years. For centuries.
A dozen versions of a respectful greeting. Two dozen variations on a formal compliment. A hundred possible phrases of deference and loyalty. All for a moment he expected to last three seconds.
And instead…
Instead, he had spent the evening in the Flight Lord’s private suite. Watching him eat pastries while arguing with him. Trying not to cry when his children asked if he was sad about having to stay in the suite.
And then walking with the Flight Lord through the hall. Begging him to go back to the suite before the Flight Lord saw them.
And now, seated at his table. Next to his daughter. As his daughter’s consort. Her husband. Tharion choked on the sip of wine he’d just taken in response to a toast someone had announced.
His father-in-law.
The phrase dropped into Tharion’s consciousness.
Father-in-law.
He swallowed hard.
He had thought the greatest shock would be surviving dinner. The dinner that just an hour before he had been forbidden to attend, ordered to remain with his Rider and her family until they could be escorted from Crimson Scale Court.
Now he was seated at the high table, not at the end of the Crimson Scale side, but on the Obsidian Flight’s side. Beside the Heiress. Named as her consort in front of the entire political structure of dragon civilization.
None of that compared to the realization that the man he had been terrified to even breathe near, the most feared, revered, impossibly powerful dragon alive, was the father of the woman whose hand was stroking his thigh under the table.
And by extension—his father-in-law.
He stared at the table for a heartbeat, grounding himself in the solidity of polished stone, the weight of his own hands, the fact that he was still breathing. Across from him, goblets were being filled, plates arranged with ritual precision, conversation beginning to stir again as if the world had not just tipped sideways.
Velara glanced at him again, this time with open amusement softened by something gentler. “For what it’s worth,” she said quietly, “my father already likes you.”
Tharion’s head snapped toward her as his mind began unraveling in new directions. What does one call the Flight Lord? Sir? My Lord? Excellency? Do I bow? Stand straighter? Sit differently? What is the protocol for having the Flight Lord as a father-in-law? Is there a protocol? How do I survive this?
Velara shifted slightly beside him, brushing his arm with effortless familiarity, and murmured, “You’re doing fine.”
Fine? He could barely remember how to swallow. His inner thoughts continued spiraling. I went from hoping he might notice me in a crowd to being announced as his daughter’s chosen partner.
Velara smiled. Not broadly. Not teasingly. Just enough to steady him. “If he didn’t like you, you wouldn’t be here.”
Tharion nhaled slowly. Exhaled.
Across the table, Veyrakh spoke quietly to Dareya, an expression briefly softening his features before shifting back into the cool, unreadable authority that defined him in public.
Tharion watched the exchange. And it hit him again: He raised her. He raised Velara. And she chose me. He nearly choked on air.
In retrospect, it made sense why Velara had walked the palace halls with such serene confidence. Why the children had shown no fear of his father. Why the guards had opened the door without hesitation. Why the crowned Courts bowed the moment Veyrakh entered.
Everything slotted into place like a trap snapping shut. He wasn’t dying tonight. That was the problem. Now he had to live with this. With the titles. With the political implications. With the Flight Lord’s eyes occasionally flicking toward him in silent assessment. With Velara’s soft, grounding presence. With the knowledge that Kaelric was four seats down from him, from the opposite direction of where the seating arrangement finalized that morning had placed him, fainting internally.
He had been claimed this evening.
Velara whispered again, warmth brushing his shoulder, “Breathe.”
Tharion inhaled. He wasn’t sure it helped.
Because his final, clearest thought cut through everything else: I didn’t miss my chance to be noticed. I missed my chance to be anonymous.
Tharion sat rigidly, forcing his posture to remain perfect, his thoughts spiraling into places that had nothing to do with protocol, diplomacy, or survival. Memories burning holes in the carefully constructed armor of his composure.
When he’d first seen Velara wandering the Crimson Scale corridors, her hair mussed from travel, wearing jeans and trainers, his reaction had not been dignified. It had been instinct. Hot feral instinct. A flash of heat and proximity. The reflexive urge to close the distance. To get her against the wall. Take her mouth. Feel whether the tension I had sensed was real. Claim what is mine. It had startled him then, sharp enough that he’d forced it down immediately, ashamed of the impulse, filing it away as stress, as misdirected adrenaline and the shock of finding her here of all places.
When she had stepped out of the suite in that gown of ember and obsidian silk clinging with lethal elegance to her curves, his mind had gone white. Clean. Cleared of every rational thought. Except for one: That dress does not belong in a hall of power. That dress belongs discarded. On my bedroom floor. And she belongs beneath me. In our bed.
The thought had landed fully formed, uninvited, and he had nearly choked on it. Tharion shifted in his chair, pulse spiking, acutely aware of how close she sat, how easily her knee brushed his, how unselfconscious her presence was beside him. He had never wanted anything so fiercely. It wasn’t merely attraction. It wasn’t simply the bond. It wasn’t awe at her lineage. It was Velara.
It was the way she carried herself, every inch a warrior’s daughter and a sovereign’s heir, even when she claimed no title aloud. It was the way her eyes found his across the room as though she knew exactly what he was thinking and exactly what she would allow.
Now she sat beside him, her arm brushing his, her scent warm and ember-sweet, her posture elegant but relaxed, as though nothing in this world could unsettle her. He tried to bury the thoughts again. He failed.
His pulse thudded in his throat. The Flight Lord is sitting on Velara’s other side, he warned himself. Get control of your mind before you die at this table.
But it didn’t matter. Velara shifted, adjusting a piece of jewelry. The silk of her gown whispered against her skin. Tharion’s lungs seized. She wasn’t doing anything on purpose. That somehow made it worse.
Velara glanced at him, catching the flicker in his expression, reading the tension with infuriating ease. Her lips curved. Not teasing. Not innocent. Knowing. Yet so faint that no one else would notice. She leaned in just enough that only he could hear her. “You’re thinking too loudly.”
His ears burned. “You have no idea.”
Her eyes flicked to his face, then deliberately to the table, then back again. “Oh,” she murmured. “I have a very good idea.”
He went completely still. His mind, which had survived the threat of instant incineration, the terror of seating protocol, and the political shockwave of becoming her consort, now crashed helplessly against one simple truth: His desire for her was not hypothetical. It was immediate. Overwhelming.
And she knew. Velara drew back, elegant, composed, appearing for all the world like a dutiful daughter seated beside her father at a state dinner.
His breath stuttered.
The bond hummed. Low, restrained, dangerous. Not a demand, nor a command, just a shared awareness that what lay between them was not merely political, not merely ceremonial, and very much not imaginary.
Tharion straightened, forcing his focus back to the present, to the table, to the impossible reality of where he was and who surrounded him.
But the realization lodged deep and irreversible: The bond had not only rearranged his future. It had stripped away the last illusion that this was a safe, distant, abstract union.
Tharion swallowed hard. He had expected to die tonight. Instead, he was learning something far more dangerous: Velara was going to ruin him.