If You Leave, I Leave novel · Chapter 19 of 24
Chapter 19: Nobody Stands for the King
Four guards started down the aisle toward Piers.
Nobody in the hall moved to help him.
Then my father stepped out of the crowd at the back, in his one good coat.
"The packs of the rivers heard that recording," he said.
"Strike what you like from your record. We heard it."
He walked up the aisle, and the Dunmere alphas fell in behind him, six men and two women in worn boots.
The old elders of the Moon rose from their benches along the wall.
They did not say anything, but they stood.
The courtiers saw it, and one by one they stood too, until the whole hall was on its feet.
The guards stopped.
The senior one, the man who had let me into the cell, lowered his spear and stepped in front of Piers.
"My lord," he said, to nobody in particular. "I don't believe I heard an order I can follow."
The King looked along the empty length of the dais.
He had not once been refused in thirty years.
"The Hall keeps its own record," the Moon Elder said. "It has always been ours, never the Crown's. The court has heard the voice, and the court has seen the vial."
"Take her," said a woman from the elders' bench.
Everyone looked at Verity.
She stood beside the Stone with her hands at her sides.
For a moment she tried it anyway, the wet eyes and the trembling mouth.
"Please," she said. "You all know me."
Nobody answered.
Tilda took a step forward, with the two models flanking her.
"One more thing," she said. "Aveline, what do you drink in the morning?"
"Oat milk, no sugar."
"And who told Verity?"
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