Don't Disturb Stella and Her Mates novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: The Marshal Speaks
The Marshal's shuttle came down before the captain could answer.
The ramp dropped, and the Marshal walked out alone in her gray coat with no guard at her elbow.
She crossed the landing pad at a steady pace and stopped ten feet from her two daughters.
Every drone in the sky swung to her.
"Stella," the Marshal said.
"Mother." Stella's voice rose, high and wet. "Tell them it's not true. Tell them I'm yours. Tell them I'm still yours."
"I will tell them the truth."
The Marshal turned and faced the lenses.
She was fifty-eight years old and had never once been seen to flinch.
She did not flinch now.
"Twenty-six years ago, in the Ostrow wing of the Kessel hospital, I gave birth to a daughter," she said. "She was small and blue, and the doctors said she would not live out the week."
Thora stood quite still.
"The registry was waiting," the Marshal said. "A house with no heir loses its seat. So I gave my dying child to a nurse on the ward and had her written down as dead."
A sound moved through the drones.
"Two years later that nurse had a healthy girl of her own. I paid her for the child and brought her into my house as my heir. That girl is Stella."
"Mother, stop," Stella whispered.
"The nurse kept my daughter alive in the slum ring because I told her to. For twenty-one years I knew roughly where that child lived, and I never went to look."
"Stop."
"I did not stop when you were two, and I will not stop now."
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