He Sold Me Into Slavery I Returned As Queen Chapter 03
Over the next few days, the pressure mounted, wave after wave.
On the morning of the third day, the supervising elders submitted a joint petition.
Some accused me of interfering in court affairs.
Others said I was abusing my power under the protection of the Lycan King’s favor.
Still others demanded that Lucian suspend my royal authority to assuage the candidates’ anger.
Tessa tried to hide the ugliest petition from me.
But I saw it anyway.
It said:
Lycan Queen Ella, being of low birth and limited ability, is ignorant of courtly procedure.
Now, out of personal resentment, she has obstructed this year’s top-ranked candidate from entering the final trial.
If she is not held in check, the common wolves will learn a bitter lesson: that no amount of hard work can stand against a single word from the powerful.
Tessa cried with rage.
“Your Highness, how can they slander you like this?”
I closed the petition.
“They’re not slandering me.”
She froze.
I said, “They’re simply writing down what they’ve been thinking all along.”
I had survived the plague shed, entered the royal court only because I’d saved the Lycan King, and had never publicly declared my bloodline.
In their eyes, a Queen like that had no right to interfere in the royal selection.
Even though I hadn’t convicted Cedric—only requested a review.
To them, I had still derailed the trial.
That afternoon, the headmaster of Mooncrown Academy arrived with more than twenty students and formed a protest line outside the palace.
They read Cedric’s essays aloud, one after another.
They read from afternoon until dusk.
Even after their voices grew hoarse, others kept shouting:
“A candidate of his caliber must not be buried!”
“Your Majesty, stop the Queen’s interference and restore fairness to the selection!”
“If Cedric cannot take the final trial, we will withdraw from the selection as a group!”
“Strip the Queen of her title and cleanse the court!”
By the time that last cry reached the palace, even the guards’ expressions had hardened.
But the students outside only shouted louder.
Some of them cut their palms and pressed bloody handprints onto the petition, staking their own qualifications on Cedric’s character.
The Vale family arrived as well.
Cedric’s uncle, Edgar Vale, had once failed the selection himself.
He stood outside the palace gates with the rest of the family.
“Cedric’s parents died young. The entire Vale family pooled our resources to send him to the academy.”
“If he is guilty, we will accept the judgment.”
“But if his qualification is being revoked simply because he offended the Queen, the Vale family will not remain silent.”
An old woman in the crowd cried out, “We are not a powerful family. Raising one top-ranked candidate is harder than raising ten pups.”
“With one word of displeasure, the Queen can destroy him.”
“If this is how the court treats ordinary wolves, where is justice?”
People are always so easily moved by such words.
I gave no response.
I simply sat under the lamplight, stitching the broken leather tie back onto the cloth pouch.
Inside it was a small scrap of fabric, long stiffened with old blood.
It was something I had written on during my first escape attempt, biting my own tongue to draw the blood to write it.
Only one word.
Live.
That night, I had almost been beaten to death.
But I survived.
So these accusations couldn’t crush me.
The louder they shouted for Cedric, the more ridiculous their voices would sound when the truth finally came out.
On the day of the public review, the square outside the royal hall was packed with people.
The headmaster of Mooncrown Academy waited outside with several students, demanding to hear a just verdict with their own ears.