The journey home was quiet. The cheering streets of Belvaris were replaced with roads lined by watchful farmers and wary villagers. No cheers here, no flowers—only eyes that searched Henry and Drizella's carriage with questions they dared not voice.
When the palace gates finally opened, the contrast was sharper still. The courtiers, dressed in their finery, bowed and curtsied—but not all with sincerity. Some bent too stiffly, their gazes avoiding Drizella as if her crown were made of thorns. Others looked past Henry, as though waiting for another to walk through the gates behind them.
Cinderella, Drizella thought bitterly. Always a shadow, even in exile.
The great council chamber mirrored the kingdom's unease. Half the nobles spoke in frantic tones about strengthening the guard, punishing rumor, silencing taverns. The other half counseled "restraint," their voices heavy with veiled warning.
Henry sat at the head of the long oak table, his hands folded, his voice calm but firm. "We will not rule by fear. Panic feeds on silence. If our people doubt us, then we will meet them with truth, not threats."
But even as he spoke, Drizella's sharp eyes caught the flickers of dissent. Lord Cawford—old, silver-haired, his fortune dwindling—shifted in his seat, lips pressed thin. Lady Verenne, young and ambitious, whispered to her neighbor rather than listening. And Sir Aldwyn, once a loyal knight, tapped his fingers restlessly against his scabbard, gaze distant.
They were not fools. They were the desperate.
Cawford, who had lost his trade routes when Henry cut ties with corrupt merchants. Verenne, who had once been promised a match with a foreign duke but found herself overlooked in favor of Drizella's alliance. Aldwyn, whose brother still languished in prison for debts owed.
All of them had something to gain if Drizella fell. And Cinderella—beautiful, wronged, patient—was the promise they clung to.
That night, in a chamber lit only by a single lamp, three figures gathered.
Cawford poured wine with a trembling hand. "The people fear her. They remember Cinderella's kindness, her humility. If she were restored—"
"Restored?" Aldwyn snorted. "She was exiled, not slain. Exile can be undone."
Verenne's lips curled in a smile. "And who better to champion her than us? The loyal few who never bent knee to the impostor."
They drank, sealing their unholy pact with silence. Cinderella's name was their weapon, and rumor their blade.
Meanwhile, Henry and Drizella prepared themselves for the storm.
That evening, she paced their chamber, her gown discarded, her hair falling loose around her shoulders. "They don't look at me as their queen, Henry. They look at me as the obstacle between them and her."
He rose from his chair, crossing to her in a few long strides. Catching her hands, he pressed them to his chest. "Then let them look. Let them see that I chose you, and I will choose you again and again."
Her eyes softened, but her voice remained sharp. "You can't fight whispers with declarations."
"No," he agreed, kissing her knuckles. "But we can drown whispers with truth. You showed Belvaris what kind of queen you are. Now we'll show them."
For a moment, the firelight caught her face, and Henry thought she looked less like the girl he had met in a dusty library and more like the woman who had walked straight into a hungry crowd and left with their loyalty.
But beyond their chamber walls, the plot deepened.
A letter smuggled into the city. A servant bribed to carry rumors through the taverns. A noblewoman quietly selling jewels to fund unseen hands.
Piece by piece, the court shifted—not yet openly, not yet boldly, but like a tide pulling back before the wave returned to strike.
And in exile, Cinderella was already listening.