Chapter 23: The Heir

The pack house hall was full of lords in travelling coats, and every one of them turned when we came in.

I had a coat over my shoulders and a bite on my shoulder.

Dalton walked beside me with the same mark in the same place.

Nobody said anything about it.

The king stood on the dais at the end of the hall beside a plain chair.

Torren stood at the foot of the step, holding a velvet cushion.

On the cushion lay a thin silver circlet.

My hand went to the coin at my throat.

"Miriam," the king said.

It was the first time he had said my name in front of the lords without a title after it.

"Come up."

I climbed the step.

My legs shook, and I let them.

His own half of the coin hung on its chain against his coat, and mine hung against mine.

"Twenty-six years ago someone took you from a nursery while I was on the road," he said.

"I've spent every day since telling myself it was the Goddess's will. It wasn't. I should have been in the house, and I'm sorry."

His voice was low, and every lord in the hall could hear it.

"You don't have to forgive me. I'm asking you to let me do one thing that I can do."

"What?" I said.

"Be the first king in three hundred years to make his daughter his heir."

A murmur ran through the lords.

One of them, a heavy man with a white moustache, stood up.

"Majesty," he said, "she has been a wolf for three weeks."

"She was raised in a small pack in the north. She has no training, no court and no..."

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