They Gave My Crown to an Adopted Daughter. The Queen Raged novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Rite

He did not say another word.

He turned his face toward my mother's shoulder, and his chest rose, and it did not fall again.

She held him for a long time with her cheek against his grey hair.

Then she laid him down and stood.

"You will bury him on the sixth day," she told the council. "Until then you will all be quiet."

On Midwinter Eve the great hall was hung with a thousand candles, and snow lay blue in the courtyards.

Three hundred nobles stood in rows, and nobody's hands were folded.

I stood at the foot of the dais in my grey northern coat, because I had refused to change it.

My mother stood at my right in black for the king.

Conroy stood at my left, one pace behind, as he had agreed to.

The doors at the far end opened, and the guards brought Marigold in.

She wore the plain grey gown of the cells.

Her golden plait had been cut off at the shoulder.

Her wrists were bound in front of her with a leather strap, not iron.

She walked the whole length of the hall alone, and she kept her chin up, and she did not look at anyone.

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