The Alpha Hunts the Exiles, So I Let Him Catch Me novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Pass

We mustered at the border stone at dusk, thirty wardens in green and one prisoner in a wool cape.

The moon came up over the beeches fat and yellow.

Nobody spoke.

My brother stood at the far end of the line with his stick, and when I passed him he scratched his left ear.

That was our old signal from when he was nine.

It meant: it is done.

I put one hand on my cape and did not look back.

"Walk with me," Unai said.

I walked at his side, as he had told them I would.

We went up past the last pasture and into the beeches, and the path closed in on both sides.

Thirty men followed in single file with their breath smoking.

My legs knew the way.

I had climbed this track every month for five years with a salt sack on my shoulder, and I could have done it blind.

I made myself slow down.

"You know it," Unai said, very low, so only I heard.

"I know some of it," I said.

"You're steering."

"I'm a guide."

"You are leading me to the Hollow in a straight line," he said.

"Yes."

He did not stop walking.

"Does the Bell-keeper know where it is?"

"I think he's always known."

He took that without breaking stride.

I watched the muscle move in his jaw.

"You promised me," I said, barely above a whisper. "At the foot of the cellar stairs. Nobody touches the Hollow."

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