His Loyalty Test Became My Pack's Funeral novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: What I Never Said

Corvin's host stood on the shingle in the dark with torches in their fists and a hundred and sixty years of grudge in their faces.

I stayed in the shadow of the boats, as Corvin had asked me to.

He knew every rider there by name, and he had led them nine years.

I had never seen him look afraid of them before.

"Give him to us," his oldest rider said.

The man was sixty, and I had been told he taught Corvin's brother to ride.

"Joss Hartigan had our boy killed under a white flag. He goes on a pole on this shore tonight. Dawn Watch's council can have what's left."

"Dawn Watch's council has twelve cloaks on the ground," Corvin said. "They have already taken his title."

"Then we take his head."

A roar went up behind the old rider.

Corvin climbed onto an overturned boat so they could all see him.

I felt him through the mark, hard and braced, and I sent back the only thing I had, which was steady.

"I want his head too," he said.

They fell silent.

"I have wanted it for eleven months. I will tell you why I did not take it before now. You deserve to hear it."

He looked down at their faces.

"Last winter my brother came to me and said he wanted to ride to Dawn Watch with a white flag and ask for peace. I said no. I said Joss Hartigan never kept a word."

The old rider's jaw moved.

"He asked me four times," Corvin said. "On the fifth I was tired. I said, go, then. Go and see for yourself."

The torches hissed.

"I did not send him with a guard. I did not ride with him. I sat in my hall and let a boy of nineteen walk into that man's house alone, because I was angry and I wanted to be proved right."

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