Chapter 2

“If Your Majesty is so angry, you can punish me.”

Elara touches her belly and smiles faintly. “But whether this child can survive it, I really don’t know.”

The Queen Mother slams the table. “Outrageous!”

Her chest rises and falls with anger. She turns and glares at Kaelen.

“This is what your spoiling has done!”

Kaelen says nothing. He only stares coldly at Elara.

Elara looks like she doesn’t care at all. She brushes off her shoulder.

The Queen Mother looks around the hall, and finally her eyes land on me.

Her gaze moves from my face to my waist. Then she nods.

“This girl is pretty enough.”

“She has huge hips. She looks fertile.”

My face burns at once.

The Queen Mother ignores it and keeps staring at me.

“How many years have you been in the palace? Why do you look so unfamiliar?”

I quickly lower myself.

“Your Majesty, I entered the palace in the same group as Her Majesty the Queen.”

The Queen Mother lifts a brow. “Then why have I never seen you attend the King?”

My palms are covered in sweat, but I force myself to answer.

“His Majesty has always focused on ruling the kingdom. I have never received his favor.”

Kaelen’s brow moves slightly.

The truth is, he has been heirless for years, so he has long been cold toward women. Later, Elara charmed him with her strange ideas, and he favored only her rooms.

Who would have thought that after just one time, Elara would actually get pregnant?

And yet she doesn’t want the child.

The more the Queen Mother thinks about it, the angrier she gets. She stands with the help of her maid.

“If the Queen refuses to give birth, then let someone willing do it.”

She looks at Kaelen, saying each word clearly. “Tonight, you will go to Lydia’s rooms.”

“Let the Queen know she is not the only woman in this palace.”

【Yes! Let that stupid woman regret wasting what she had!】

The baby voice cheers happily beside my ear.

On the other side, Elara’s face turns iron-gray.

That night, half the porcelain in her rooms is smashed.

The next morning, the fire in the Queen Mother’s hall burns hot.

The Queen Mother sits at the head of the room in a white fur cloak, but her face is colder than the snow outside.

Elara arrives very late.

She comes in holding her maid’s hand, her back straight.

Her belly is not showing yet, but she walks like she is about to give birth any day.

Kaelen sits below the Queen Mother, his lowered eyes even sharper than before.

Elara gives a careless curtsy. “Did you sleep badly last night, Mother?”

The Queen Mother looks at her coldly.

“Thanks to you, Elara, how could I sleep?”

Elara laughs softly and sits down on her own.

“Why be angry, Mother? I simply refuse to be trapped by the crown and children.”

“A woman’s life should not become only about a child from the moment she gets pregnant.”

The Queen Mother tightens her grip on her beads.

“But the child in your belly is the only dragon heir the King has waited years for!”

“So?”

Elara raises her eyes to Kaelen.

“So I should be grateful and throw away the rest of my life?”

Kaelen’s fingers rest on the armrest, tapping again and again.

“What do you want?”

This is exactly what Elara has been waiting for.

“The child can stay, but I have two conditions.”

The Queen Mother’s face darkens at once.