Chapter 12: The Crown on the Table

The crown lay in an iron box on a stone shelf at the back of the Hall.

Torren carried it up the cliff stair himself, wrapped in a wolf pelt, while the horns shrieked on the walls.

He set it on the map table in the war room, where he had once bent her over the border map.

Marit remembered, and her face heated.

She saw him remember too.

His mouth twitched.

Then the door crashed open, and the war room filled with clan chiefs in furs and mail, shouting over each other.

"Six thousand, Majesty!"

"They've taken the lower road!"

"Send the riders, burn the bridge!"

Torren raised one hand.

The room went quiet at once.

"Chiefs of the Wildlands," he said. "Before we speak of the army, you will hear something else."

He unwrapped the pelt.

The crown was a plain iron band, black with age, set with a single pale stone as big as a thumb.

It did not look like much.

The chiefs went silent anyway.

The chief stood at the back with his arms folded, and he did not say a word.

Torren turned to Marit.

"The High Queen's daughter opened the Hall of the High Kings this morning, in front of three witnesses," he said.

"The wolf's eyes lit for her. The slab moved."

A rumble ran through the room.

"She is the last blood of the High Kings, and the only living heir to the Wildlands."

"I held this throne eight years because I swore to my father I would keep it for her."

"I held it in trust, and the crown stayed in its box."

He lifted the iron band in both hands.

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