He Sold Me Into Slavery I Returned As Queen Chapter 22
No one in the interrogation room answered her.
I stood in the observation area behind the partition, and when I heard that, I gave a quiet laugh.
Even now, she still thought I had returned to fight her for something.
But I had never wanted what she held so tightly in her hands.
Alaric’s regret, the family seat, Cedric’s betrothal—none of it meant anything to me.
All I wanted was for them to admit it.
Ella Raine had not simply wandered off.
What happened to her was not fate, and it should never have been forgotten.
She had been deliberately sold.
The day the sentence was announced, a heavy rain fell over the capital.
Cedric’s scores and academy honors were all stripped away.
For abduction, trafficking, use of wolfsbane, and perjury, he was sentenced to flogging and twenty years’ exile in the mining district, barred for life from returning to the capital.
The Vale family was ordered to pay compensation, and part of their property was frozen.
Greta, having trafficked multiple people, was spared death due to her confession and was exiled to labor in the wasteland work zone.
Rosalie was stripped of her status as heiress and sent to serve at an aid shelter outside the city for knowingly destroying evidence. For life, she was forbidden to represent the Ironwood Pack in any mating or political alliance.
After losing his voting rights in the Northern Council, Alaric personally went to the Bloodline Registry to reopen the old case.
The new record read:
*Ella Raine, eldest daughter of the Raine family, was abducted and sold by Cedric Vale on the Full Moon Festival of Frost Calendar Year Three, displaced for fifteen years. Former record of death entered in error. Name and free status hereby restored.*
Name restored.
I stared at those two words for a long time.
Tessa stood beside me, her eyes red from crying.
I did not cry.
Fifteen years ago, I had already shed more than enough tears.