Chapter 23: The Hall Kneels

The ward lamps in the Founders' hall had been dark the night I walked out.

They blazed the night I walked back in.

Every candle on the dais was lit, and white light ran along the rafters.

The whole pack stood along the walls in their good clothes.

I came through the doors in a plain gray dress, with my hair loose, and my boots clean for once.

I had asked for the boots.

Nobody argued.

Teague stood at the far end in a borrowed black coat, grinning at me.

Hollis stood beside him in his Command uniform with his hands behind his back.

The mark on his wrist was already glowing through the cuff.

The mark on my shoulder answered him from under my sleeve, warm.

I walked toward it down the long aisle between my own people.

I saw faces I knew.

The baker's wife, with her son on her hip.

The mechanic in a clean shirt, wiping his eyes with a grease rag he had forgotten to put down.

The Seer on a bench near the front, with her bowl in her lap.

At the back wall stood Sabine, in a cheap blue coat with her hair in a braid.

She had calluses on both hands now, from four Sunday mornings in my yard.

She did not smile, and I did not either.

She nodded once, and I nodded back.

That was enough for a Sunday.

Beside the last pillar, between two Crown guards, stood a gray man in an ill-fitting coat.

There was a pale band on his finger where the ring had been.

The Council had allowed him to stand and watch.

My father did not meet my eyes.

I did not make him.

I reached the dais.

The old man with the cane stood there.

It was the place where my father used to stand to give away other people's lives.

"Linnea Brask," he said. "Hollis Garrow. The Council has no authority over a mate bond, and wants none."

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