He Sacrificed Our Child, Now He Begs for Me novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Dawn Court

Rowena walks into the full Council and tells the hall how her son died. Magnus must free the Healer to stop her, and Torin Montfort stands up to carry her out.

At noon the doors of the Great Hall opened, and I walked in on my own feet.

It took me a full minute to cross the floor.

I held my back straight and my hands at my sides, and I did not touch the wall.

The Council sat in tiers on both sides, in their grey robes.

Behind them were the visiting Alphas of every pack in the Crown's alliance, who had come for the Dawn Court and found it cancelled.

Hester had called it anyway.

She sat in the Queen Mother's chair beside the throne, and she did not look at her son.

Magnus sat on the throne in a black suit, and his face did not move when I stopped before him.

The Chief Seer sat at his left hand with his fingers laced.

"This court was cancelled," Magnus said.

"The Crown Pack's oath belongs to the Queen Mother when she calls it," Hester said. "I'm calling it."

"Rowena has only just lost a child. She isn't well."

"Then she will say so herself."

Hester turned to me.

"Speak, Lady Morland."

I had not been called Lady Morland in three years.

"Three years ago, when Northcrest put its wolves behind the Crown, the Queen Mother promised my father one wish for me," I said.

"I'm asking for it today. Strip me of the title of Luna Queen and let me leave."

The hall made a sound I could feel in the floor.

Magnus leaned forward.

"This is grief," he said to the Council. "She'll feel differently in a month."

"Say what happened, then," an old Alpha called from the visitors' benches. "Why would a Luna ask for this?"

I turned to face them all.

"The night my son was born, the King's guard sealed my delivery room."

"My Healer and her team stood in the corridor with forty nurses watching, and the captain read out the King's order."

"Nobody was to help me until Jessamine Fairhurst's child had been born."

I kept my voice level and said every word plainly.

"My son was lying the wrong way. I spent the whole night in labor with no Healer."

"At dawn, Jessamine's boy was born, and the King lifted his order."

"My son was already dead. I lost my womb. I will not carry another child."

Nobody in the hall spoke.

A young Alpha on the visitors' benches had stood up without seeming to notice.

Magnus did not lie, because a lie spoken in the Great Hall is heard by the moon.

"The prophecy named the first child," he said. "I could not break it."

"It is a seer's word. A king cannot undo it."

"The moon's blessing is no one's choice," the Seer said gently.

"Neither was the door," I said.

I did not look at him.

I looked at the old Alpha who had asked.

"Northcrest gave this throne its first army. The King thanked my father for it with a wedding."

"This is how he repaid us."

The murmur rose from the visiting benches, and the Council members looked at one another.

Magnus saw it too.

He had counted votes his whole life, and he could see how this one was going.

"Enough," he said. "Lady Morland is unwell. We'll hear her in private."

"I've said what I came to say," I said.

"But I'm not finished, Your Majesty."

I turned back to him, and my voice dropped so the hall had to listen for it.

"The Healer who tried to reach my door is in your cells, on your own signature."

"I will stand here and give the Council the name of every guard on that corridor and every nurse who watched."

"Or you can open her cell, and I will go quietly."

Magnus held my eyes for a long moment.

I watched him run the numbers.

"Release her," he said, to the captain at the door.

The captain went at once.

"The Queen Mother's wish is granted," Hester said. She lifted the pen.

"By the promise made to the Alpha of Northcrest, Rowena Morland is no longer Luna Queen of the Crown Pack, and may leave the castle freely."

She signed.

The Council members signed after her, one at a time.

I took the silver ring off my left hand.

It was warm from my skin.

I set it on the arm of the throne in front of Magnus and did not say anything.

"You can't go to Northcrest without an escort," he said quietly. "It's three days' drive, and the roads are bad."

"She'll have one," someone said from the benches.

The voice was low and unhurried.

A man rose from the Greywater seat in the third row.

He was tall, with a scar along his jaw and dark hair that needed cutting, and he wore a plain work shirt among all the grey robes.

"The Healer is my sister," Torin Montfort said.

"Greywater will carry Lady Morland to the road."

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