Chapter 22: The Seat

Margo's POV

Imogen had read the signed page twice at the lodge gate before she let herself believe it.

"Sole say," she said to Torben. "It says sole."

"It says sole."

She folded the page against her stomach and held it there.

"I want to speak tomorrow," she said, turning to me. "At the vote. Before Verity does. Please."

"You'll have the Stone," I said.

The charter vote was at nine the next morning.

Ridgemoor came up the meadow in its work clothes, all four hundred of them.

The keeper sat on her folding chair and read the rule aloud.

"A pack may keep its charter or set it aside by the step."

She pointed with her pen.

"Those who hold to Verity Castelnaud as regent, stand to the left of the Stone. Those who hold to the Luna the Moon has crowned, stand to the right."

Nobody moved.

I stood by the granite with my hands folded, because I did not trust them anywhere else.

I could see the cooks from the pack kitchens in the third row, and the girls from the linen room.

I had taught half of them how to fold a fitted sheet.

Verity stood alone on the left in a gray coat with her cane.

"Before you choose," she said, in her softest voice, "remember who held your hands when your children were born."

She turned in a slow half circle.

"Remember who sat with your dying. This girl has been your Luna for a week."

"Five years," a woman called from the middle of the crowd.

Verity turned her head.

"I beg your pardon?"

"She's been our Luna five years," the woman said, shaking. "She just didn't have the crown."

She swallowed.

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