Chapter 23: She Asks

The Council gave its judgment on Bram Kestrel the next morning, and I made myself go and hear it.

The hall was nearly empty.

Bram stood alone at the rail in a gray prison shirt.

The senior elder read it in a flat voice.

For ordering the milk draw, for taking a pup by drugged force, and for his years of unearned rank, Bram Kestrel was stripped of every title.

He was to serve ten years in the Council tower kitchens.

He was forbidden to come within a mile of Morwen Alder or her daughter, for life.

"Do you have anything to say?" the elder asked.

"No, Elder."

He turned his head and found me in the back row.

I looked at him until he looked away.

That was all I wanted from him, and I got it.

I walked out into the sun with Lark on my hip and Rowan limping at my side, his ribs wrapped and his arm in a sling.

He stopped at the bottom of the steps.

"You said you wanted to ask me something," he said.

"Yes."

I handed Lark to the midwife, who was waiting on a bench with her own arm in a cast, grinning.

Then I took Rowan's good hand.

"I don't want a mark," I said.

"I know."

"I don't want you to claim me, or the pack to decide, or the Council to read anything off my shoulder."

"I know that too."

"I want a ring. I want to say the words out loud, and I want to say them first."

I dropped to one knee on the Council steps.

Rowan went very still.

"Rowan MacClellan, I choose you," I said. "Nobody made me and nothing marked me. Will you marry me?"

He stared at me.

Then he laughed, rough and surprised, and his eyes were wet.