Chapter 22: Five on Their Knees

Ronan went down on both knees on the wet stones in front of the whole kingdom.

He did it without a sound, and the square went quiet to hear him.

"My name is Ronan Fitzalan," he said. "I am the Alpha of the Fitzalan pack."

"Two years ago I took Althea Westermark as my wife in this Temple."

"For two years I turned my back on her at my own table."

"A few weeks ago in the Temple, I knelt on that marble and told her to end our bond or I'd take her stepsister to my bed while she watched."

"I said it to humiliate her."

"I was told to say it by nobody, and I said it because I wanted to."

A murmur ran through the elders.

"I am not asking for pardon," he said. "I'm telling you what I did, with my own name, so that none of you can say it was done to me."

I stood with the torch still in my hand and did not say a word.

Elias knelt next.

He unpinned the silver commander's badge from his grey coat and laid it on the stones.

"I am Elias Garrick," he said. "I was the war commander of the Fitzalan pack."

"I watched her hold out her hand, and I let her stand there alone."

"I broke my own knuckles against a wall because I could not face what I'd done."

"I resign my command. I am her guard, if she will have me, and I will go where she tells me."

Corin knelt, and for once he did not look at the crowd for a reaction.

"Corin Fitzroy," he said. "I kept the pack's accounts."

"I called her a thief in the market square when she took what the law gave her."

"I said she'd rejected us for our money."

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