Out of the Shadow at Last novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Choice

Nobody in the court moved.

Four hundred wolves stood in the cold, and every one of them looked at me.

Mother's eyes were wet and steady.

She had cried in the right places for as long as I could remember.

"She was seventeen," Mother said. "She did it for a boy, a vampire boy from across the river."

"There was no boy," I said.

"You were smiling, darling. I thought I'd never forget it."

I opened my mouth, and nothing came out.

An oath on the Moon is the heaviest thing a wolf can swear.

Everyone in that court knew it, and nobody could tell by looking whether it was true.

Ivar's hand found my elbow, and he did not squeeze it.

He only stood there where I could feel him.

"Alpha," the oldest Alpha said, and rapped her cane once. "An oath on the Moon cannot be struck from the record."

"Neither can the Seal's word," she said. "Both have been spoken before this council."

"Then they are in conflict," Father said.

"They are," she said. "And the Seal remembers every door it has opened."

I went cold.

"Every one?" I asked.

"Every one, child. Any barrier mage knows that."

I had not known it.

Nobody had ever taught me anything about the Seal except how to feed it.

"It will tell us who opened the border on Hollow Night," she said. "Reading it takes a night's rest and your blood."

"The council will sit again at noon tomorrow, when you are fit to read it."

"She will run," Father said.

"She will sleep in the east wing at Northgate, under Halvorsen's guard," said the oldest Alpha. "And so will her brother."

"Anders stays with me," Father said.

Anders stepped over to my side of the court.

Father looked at him for a long moment.

"Then you're no son of mine," he said.

"I've heard that one," I said. "It goes quicker the second time."

Someone in the packs laughed, one short surprised bark, and then they were all talking at once.

I did not hear any of it.

Ivar walked me out through the gate with his hand at my back.

He did not take it away until the east wing door closed behind us.

It was nearly dark. The day had gone somewhere I never saw it go.

Bram had lit the fire.

He put a plate on the table, looked at our faces, and left without a joke.

I stood by the hearth with my hands out to the flames.

They would not stop shaking.

"She said I smiled," I said.

"I know."

"What if I did?"

"You were seventeen and drugged and asleep," Ivar said. "You were in a bed. You smiled at nothing."

"She said it so well, Ivar."

"She's had seven years of practice."

I turned around.

He was standing in the middle of his parents' room with his coat off and his sleeves pushed up.

The bandage showed through his shirt on the left side.

He looked at me and waited, and he would have waited all night.

I did not want him to stand there.

"Tomorrow I read the Seal," I said. "It might say anything."

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