Chapter 10: The Yard

Dorian drew the whip back, and I turned the rim of the ring a full turn.

The Keeper had said it would play the whole night on a flat wall, if I let it.

The nearest wall was the canvas side of the biggest tent, white and flat and taller than two men.

I pressed the red stone to it.

Light spilled across the canvas, and three hundred wolves stopped breathing.

The Moonhall shone on the tent wall, from the height of a king's hip.

Dorian drew his gun.

He aimed it at my chest.

"Father-in-law," his own voice said, soft and sweet from the canvas, "it's time."

"Now," said Percival's voice.

The shot on the canvas cracked across the yard.

On the tent wall my father fell, and Dorian slid the gun into my lap.

Dorian lunged for the canvas.

He tore at the ring on my hand, and I held on with both fists, and he dragged me three steps across the dirt.

"Stop it," he screamed. "Stop the stone. It's a forgery."

"Is it?" said the grey-bearded wolf from the front row.

He was old, with a deep, slow voice, and he did not raise it.

"I was at the Moonhall last night," he said. "I carried the Alpha's rifle at the north gate. I never saw Princess Rhiannon take a gun from anyone."

"Quiet, old man," Dorian snapped.

"I did see you take it from your holster, my lord."

Nobody in the camp spoke.

Dorian's hands came off my arm.

He stepped back, and I saw him look from face to face and find nothing in them he could use.

"You're all traitors," he said, almost whispering.

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Survived My Father's Test and Took His Throne from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.