Crown of Hidden Scales novel · Chapter 13 of 24
Chapter 13: The Dowager's Truth
The hall waited for Rhain to answer her.
Five hundred nobles turned toward him, and I could hear them breathing.
He stood bareheaded on the black marble with his scales bare to the elbow.
"Mine," he said.
Hesper's eyebrows rose a quarter of an inch.
"I put the rope on thirty-one people," said Rhain.
"I said their trades in a market square, and I will say them here if the court wants it."
"I was four when my mother burned. I don't know who held the torch."
"I know who put the first rope in my hand when I was eighteen."
"Hear him confess," said Hesper, turning to the hall with her palms open.
"I gave this man eleven years of the realm's justice, my lords, and not one of you asked his name."
A few of them looked at their shoes.
Then she looked at me, and her voice dropped to something almost kind.
"You wonder why I kept him alive, Lady Sabine."
"I wonder a great many things about you," I said.
"Then wonder this. Why did your mother die so young?"
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of Crown of Hidden Scales are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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