The Slave Queen - Chapter 2: Chapter 2

A cold, cutting voice drifted into her ears along with the wind, each word like a blade, slicing straight into Raelynn's chest.
They assumed that because she'd grown up doing hard labor, she could shoulder the noble consort's rage and years of suffering—endure life alone in that desolate corner of Aether Sanctum. Meanwhile, Julia, delicate and pampered, raised with care in the Duke's estate and sickly since birth, was far too fragile to face punishment. So naturally, Raelynn was the one who had to take her place.
But they all seemed to forget—she was the Duke's estate's real daughter. And the cat that caused the noble consort's miscarriage? That had been brought into the palace by Julia.
Not that Raelynn could bring herself to argue. She'd always been quiet by nature, and after three years in the palace, she barely remembered how to speak up at all.
The tension between the siblings hung heavy in the air. Gabriel stared at her as if she'd committed some unspeakable crime.
The old servant driving the carriage took one look and silently shook his head. In his mind, Raelynn simply didn't know how to behave.
He thought, 'Lady Margot has gone to the palace time and time again, begging just for a glimpse of her. Now Lord Gabriel himself has come to bring her home—yet she can't even show a shred of understanding?
'She was raised in the countryside, after all. Even after being welcomed back to the Duke's estate and raised side by side with Lady Julia, she still doesn't seem to grasp what the family has gone through. Maybe she is still bitter, still trying to compete with Lady Julia.'
But none of that could be said aloud. So he simply rubbed his half-frozen hands together and said cautiously, "Lord Gabriel, perhaps let Lady Raelynn board first. Lady Margot will worry if we take much longer."
Gabriel's jaw tightened. He couldn't exactly scold her in front of the palace gates, so he forced down his anger. For now.
He yanked the carriage curtain open with a sharp motion. "Get in."
Raelynn lowered her head and slowly stepped toward the carriage. But the moment she caught the scent inside, her body stiffened, and a shiver ran down her spine.
It was rose fragrance—a trendy fragrance in Hazond City, especially favored by the nobility. But to her, it was the smell of nightmares.
The noble consort's chambers were filled with the scent. Normally, she was kept too busy to notice it. But when she was called into the inner halls, the scent meant only one thing: another night of unbearable torment.
Red-hot branding irons pressed into her lower back. Slivers of sharpened stick jabbed under her fingernails. Whips lined with barbed hooks. She'd lost count of how many beatings she'd taken. The noble consort had poured all her grief over her lost child onto Raelynn—night after night. And Raelynn had never dared to utter a single word.
Compared to washing endless piles of clothes or cleaning toilets, that was the true suffering.
She froze at the edge of the carriage step, her voice barely steady. "Lord Gabriel, I... I'd rather not ride inside. I'll stay up front."
Gabriel's face hardened further. Without a word, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her down from the carriage with force.
Her back hit the frozen ground hard, sending pain shooting through the half-healed wounds beneath her clothes. Raelynn's face went pale.
"You don't want to ride in the carriage? Then walk home!" Gabriel's voice was sharp with anger. "Three years in the palace and now you think you can treat your own brother like this? You're nothing like Julia—she's a hundred times more thoughtful than you!"
He looked down at her, towering above with fury in his eyes. "We're leaving. Let her walk back on her own. Maybe some time in the cold will knock some sense into her."
With that, he climbed into the carriage and left her behind at the palace gates.
The wheels cut deep tracks through the snow, then disappeared into the distance.
Snowflakes slipped under Raelynn's clothes, numbing her limbs with cold. But inside, she felt... hollow. No anger, no sorrow—just the familiar ache of being abandoned.
After all, this wasn't the first time.
Four years ago, her own family left her at these same palace gates, never looking back.
She forced herself upright and started walking, step by painful step, toward the Duke's estate. Every movement sent a stabbing pain through her ankle.
Gabriel had probably forgotten—she'd injured her foot long ago.
Half a year before she was sent to Aether Sanctum, Gabriel had fallen seriously ill. The family had summoned every top physician in Hazond City, but nothing worked.
Desperate, Raelynn remembered a rumor from the servants: a miracle doctor lived in a remote church in the Mount Darost, known for curing impossible ailments.
Her parents hadn't believed her. So she'd gone alone. She braved the treacherous roads, fell off a cliff, and nearly became food for wolves.
By some miracle, a young man traveling the same path had saved her life. And even with her body battered and aching, she managed to beg the doctor to return with her.
He cured Gabriel. But her own foot never healed right. On flat ground, she seemed fine—but the moment the road turned rough, it would twist beneath her with a sharp, blinding pain.
Gabriel had known. Afterward, he had all the walkways in the estate repaved with smooth stone, ordered a sedan chair prepared for her wherever she went—afraid she might hurt herself again.
And now, that same brother had thrown her out of a moving carriage and told her to walk home through the snow.
Flakes swirled from the sky, thick and heavy. She trudged forward, limping through the cold. For the first time, the thought entered her mind, 'Maybe I don't need to go back to that place. Maybe that house was never really home.'
But then she thought of Margot. The years she had waited. The visits she made again and again, begging for just one glance of her. She remembered that day—Margot bowing outside the palace gates, snow in her white hair, pleading with the noble consort through tears to let Raelynn go.
Raelynn had wanted nothing more than to rush into her arms and tell her not to worry. But all she could do was bow in the courtyard of Aether Sanctum, back screaming in pain, and cry silently—because even crying out loud wasn't allowed.
And all the while, her parents and Gabriel had been at home, comforting Julia—who had "fallen ill from guilt."
No. She would go back. Not for her family, but for Margot. To be by her side, to repay the woman who had never stopped loving her. And once she had done that—her debt to the Duke's estate would be paid in full.
The snow kept falling, thick and silent. By the time Raelynn reached the gates of the Duke's estate, the sky had gone dark.