He Sold Me Into Slavery, I Returned as Queen novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Tears in the Courtyard

The Thornwell party arrives, Corvin weeps on his knees before the court, and Rosamund sees the white streak in the Queen's hair and whispers a name nobody has said in fifteen years.

The Thornwell carriages rolled into the palace courtyard at ten the next morning.

Every minister in the capital stood on the steps to watch them arrive.

I stood on the top step beside Lysander, in the white court dress he liked and a sleeve that reached my knuckles.

His hand rested at the small of my back, warm through the silk.

I noticed it, and then I made myself stop noticing.

The first door opened, and my father climbed down.

His hair had gone fully grey, and he leaned a little on a cane with a silver wolf's head.

I had last seen that cane in his study when I was seven, hanging on a hook above the fire.

My chest hurt, and I knew exactly what the feeling was.

It was grief, and it was only for the man I had believed in as a child.

He bowed to the king, and he looked at my shoulder.

He did not look at my face.

Rosamund came down next, in pale pink silk, with her curls pinned up and a smile for the crowd.

She had always looked like a girl who had never been scolded.

Corvin stepped down last, in Highmoor blue, and the crowd made a soft sound at the sight of him.

He had grown tall and handsome, and he had kept his open, honest face.

He walked straight to the foot of the steps.

Then he dropped to his knees on the stones in front of two hundred people.

"Your Highness," he said, and his voice cracked. "Please. I have to ask."

"What did I do to earn your hatred?"

Tears ran down his face, fast and clean.

"I have spent my whole life trying to be a good man. If I have wronged you without knowing it, tell me, and I will make it right."

A woman in the crowd pressed a hand to her mouth.

An old minister shook his head at me.

Aldous Pellam stepped up beside the kneeling boy and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"The boy is shaking," Aldous said. "Surely the Queen can see it."

I could see it.

I had also seen that exact face at the age of seven, when Corvin broke my mother's blue vase and cried so hard that my father punished me instead.

He had learned early that tears worked on my family.

He had never needed to learn another trick.

"Stand up, Corvin Leland," I said. "I never asked you to kneel."

He stayed down, shoulders heaving.

Lysander's hand pressed once, lightly, at my back.

It was a question.

I answered it by stepping forward and standing over Corvin where the whole courtyard could see us both.

"You cry well," I said.

A murmur ran along the steps.

Corvin's head came up, and for one second his eyes were dry and flat.

Then the tears came back.

"I cannot tell you how much that hurts me, Your Highness."

"I am sure you cannot," I said.

Lysander spoke over us both.

"Lord Leland, the Court and the Registry will do their work, and you will be the Crown's guest until they finish."

"Your pack's party may stay in the east wing."

"You will not leave the palace grounds."

Corvin bowed his head and said he was grateful.

My father cleared his throat and spoke to the steps in front of my feet.

"The Thornwell pack thanks Your Majesties for the welcome."

"We have lost a child ourselves, Your Highness. We know what it is to grieve, and we ask only that you be gentle with a boy who grieved with us."

My hands were steady inside my sleeves.

I had waited fifteen years to hear my father say my name, and he had just used me as an example of a lost child.

"I am sorry for your loss, Alpha," I said. "How long ago was it?"

His mouth opened and shut.

"Fifteen years," he said to my shoulder.

"A long time to carry it," I said. "I hope you carry it well."

Rosamund hurried up the steps to take his arm, saying his name in her soft, shaking voice.

Then she turned to me with both hands out.

"Your Highness, forgive him. He has not slept in days. We are so honored to be received."

She took my arm to bow over it.

Her fingers closed on my left sleeve, right over the brand.

I jerked my arm back so hard that she stumbled.

She straightened with a small, startled laugh.

Her eyes rose from my sleeve to my face and stopped on the white streak at my temple.

I had gone white in the plague shed at fifteen, in one night, and it had never grown back dark.

Rosamund's smile stayed where it was, but nothing behind it moved.

I watched the color leave her cheeks.

She looked at my eyes, and then at my mouth, and then at my eyes again.

My father had gone very still on the stones behind her.

"Ellie?" Rosamund whispered.

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