Chapter 25: The Answer

Rafe walked into Greyhaven's council hall on three days' notice, with one ash stick and no coat.

The hall was cold, and he did not seem to feel it.

Every bench was full.

Greyhaven's traders filled the front, and behind them sat the Hollin captains, the red-bearded one at the end with his arms folded.

Two small packs that winter on the pass road had come down to see an Alpha stand in a room and be asked questions.

I sat at the side with Nessa on one hand and Joss on the other.

Clara was brought up from the cells between two guards.

They sat her on the bench below the speaker, with her wrists tied in front of her and her honey hair gone flat.

She looked at Rafe the moment she came through the door.

He did not look at her.

"Name yourself," the broad woman said.

"Rafe Hollin. Until the winter moon, Alpha of the Hollin caravan."

"You know why you're here."

"For the barn."

"Then tell it."

He put both hands on the top of the stick.

"On the dark of the moon, in autumn, a boy came to the watch room and said Clara Dunn was in a burning barn on your toll road."

"I rode there and went in through the fire and carried her out."

"I did not ask why a woman who'd left the pack two years before was in a locked barn at night."

"I did not ask who had lit the lamp."

"You walked through a fire," the old man said. "Men have been given the pass road's thanks for less."

"I didn't feel it," Rafe said. "I thought that was courage."

The hall made a low sound.

"Go on," the speaker said.

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