Chapter 19: The Moon Crowns Me

I did not run.

Torben was already moving, and I said "Stay" without turning my head.

He stopped.

I will never know how I knew to do it.

Heath came across the grass with the silver edge held low, and I stood where I was and looked at him.

I thought of the cuff, and the key, and the chamomile.

I thought of the woman on the quilt.

"Heath," I said. "Look at me."

He looked.

The moon went white overhead, and the light on the Stone bent.

It gathered above my forehead in a thin curve, a crescent of pure silver, and it came down onto my hair.

It didn't burn.

It sat on my brow, warm and light.

Heath's blade stopped a foot from my ribs.

His arm locked at the elbow, and the knife shook in his fist.

The silver edge went dark, and then gray.

The blade fell out of his hand and into the grass.

"What have you done?" he whispered.

"Nothing," I said. "It isn't mine."

He tried to shift.

I saw him try, the shudder running down his spine, and nothing came.

His wolf would not rise.

He dropped to his knees in front of me with his empty hands open on his thighs.

"The Moon has crowned," the old woman said, into a silence so deep that I heard the meadow grass move.

"A Luna the Moon has chosen outranks any crown an Alpha puts on a head."

She looked at Imogen, and not unkindly.

"Ridgemoor's crown on the Thaxter girl is void. The seat is the Luna's."

She went down on one knee in the grass.

The tall man from the north fork followed, and then the orchard Alpha.

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