After Transmigrating, My Husband Is an Octopus novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Read Aloud

At noon the next day, two hundred shifters stood in Pearl Hall and watched me walk the length of the white floor.

I wore the grey dress Bess had pressed.

Lorcan walked beside me with his sleeves buttoned to the wrist and his face blank.

Nobody stood within three paces of him.

The Regent sat on a low throne at the far end, in silver, with Lord Tristram at her right hand.

I bowed from the waist, eyes down, the way I had been taught.

"Rise," said Ottoline Brack.

Her voice carried to every corner.

"We are here to examine the pet of Lorcan Brae," she said. "Three trials, as the old law requires. The first is manners."

A gull lord stood up in the crowd.

He had a purple bruise around his neck and would not meet Lorcan's eyes.

He asked me to name the proper greeting to a shark, a gull and a viper.

I told him.

A murmur went through the court, and it was surprised.

"The second," said the Regent. "Usefulness. What can she do?"

I had practised an answer about fish tanks.

I never gave it.

"The old way," said Lord Tristram smoothly, rising from his seat. "My lady, may I suggest it? It has not been done in Pearl Hall for forty years. The pet is asked to read."

The whole court went quiet.

It was clear they all knew what it meant, and I was the only one in the room who didn't.

I looked at Lorcan.

His skin had gone a sudden, drained white.

"Read whom?" I asked.

"Anyone she chooses," the Regent said. "Or I will choose for her. Child, do you see something when you look at two people?"

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