The Girl He Sold Returned As The King’s Mate Chapter 03
On the third day, the Royal Council received a dozen formal complaints.
Some demanded that Elliot revoke my access to the Royal Castle.
Others demanded the public hearing be canceled and Adrian’s appointment restored immediately.
The most cutting one read:
*Naomi Sutton is a border Healer. She has no formal training in public administration. She has no right to use pillow talk and a tall tale to derail a royal appointment.*
*If this is allowed to stand, then Academy students won’t need to work hard. They’ll just need to figure out who’s sleeping with whom in the Royal Castle.*
Maeve’s eyes were red by the time she finished reading it aloud.
“They have no idea what really happened.”
“And because they don’t know, they believe the story that’s easier to swallow.”
“Adrian has the polished essays, the poor background, the proof of thirteen years of hard work.”
“In their eyes, I’m just some unknown Healer who stumbled into the King’s favor.”
“Put those two pictures side by side, and of course they’ll rush to defend him.”
The protests outside the Castle grew more heated by the day.
A publishing house rushed a collection of Adrian’s essays to print, announcing that all proceeds would go toward a scholarship fund for students from poor Packs.
People unfurled white banners in the square and asked this year’s other candidates to sign their names in support.
A few candidates even declared that if Adrian was denied his post, they would refuse to attend their own induction ceremony.
Adrian always stood at the front of the crowd.
He never attacked me directly.
Whenever someone’s curses grew too vicious, he would even turn to the livestream cameras and plead for calm.
“Naomi may have simply been misled.”
“Please, don’t attack the King or the Royal Castle on my account.”
The more he played the part of the magnanimous victim, the more his supporters adored him.
Every day, Isla was there, bringing him water and medicine.
On the fourth day, after standing in the cold for too long, she finally collapsed. Adrian caught her in his arms as the crowd gasped, and the video rocketed to the top of the news feeds.
A pair of star-crossed lovers, torn apart.
A poor genius, unjustly crushed by power.
The story was complete.
All it needed was for the villain—me—to be driven out of the Royal Castle in disgrace.
That night, Elliot came to my office.
He set the two most aggressive complaints on my desk.
“Are you afraid?”
“I’m afraid the witnesses won’t make it to the capital in one piece.”
“The Royal Guard has them. They’re in the Castle’s secure wing. Their route avoided Riverbend territory, and their arrival was never logged in the public system.”
Only then did the knot in my stomach finally loosen.
Elliot saw the crescent-shaped nail marks in my palm.
“You don’t look as calm as you did this morning.”
“I’m not afraid of them.”
I glanced toward the sea of lights in the square outside my window.
“I just remembered how people used to talk about the owner of the Starlight Carnival. They said he was a respectable man, that he’d never beat a child without cause.”
“They didn’t believe me because I was just a girl with a number on her ankle and no Pack to claim her.”
“My name has changed, but the script hasn’t.”
Elliot closed the complaint files.
“In seven days, no one’s identity will testify for them.”
“The evidence will.”
On the fifth day, the Royal Guard brought in a former clerk from the Hawthorne family’s records warehouse.
On the sixth day, old ferry company navigation logs and the Starlight Carnival’s hidden ledger arrived at the Royal Castle.
At the same time, investigators, acting under a formal warrant, opened a locked violin case in Isla’s room.
Its contents bypassed Daniel completely and were sealed directly in the evidence room.
Maeve asked me, “Is that the final piece?”
“It’s the proof that she chose silence.”
“And Adrian?”
“There’s more than one thing that proves what he did.”
I snapped the lid shut on the evidence box holding the brass tag.
Thirteen years ago, he believed that a nine-year-old girl, stripped of her name and shipped out of Riverbend territory, could never find her way back.
What he never counted on was that criminals keep ledgers, too.
Every truck ferried across the river left a record at the dock.
And he never imagined that the driver he paid to hide his dry clothes would still be alive today.
He could fake a fall into the river.
But he couldn’t erase every trace he’d left behind.