The bells tolled at dawn.
Their deep, booming voices rolled across the kingdom, rattling windowpanes, waking servants, and calling the elders to assemble.
Roland had ordered the trial the moment Rose had agreed, and his command had spread with ruthless efficiency.
It was now evening and time.
"The red-haired girl," they called her.
Some scoffed and spat, claiming she was another fraud, another fortune-hunter come to play on the Queen's grief.
Others, hushed and fearful, said perhaps, just perhaps, she might truly be a miracle child, the last surviving bloom of Scarlett's line.
In the antechamber where the trial's subject waited, Auburn sat alone, wringing her trembling hands together. The chamber was small and bare, its stone walls cold with damp.
A single torch sputtered on the far wall, casting a wavering glow across her pale face.
She had barely been able to call herself down from the very moment she had been brought in up till now as she heard the bells ring.
