Chapter 18: Iron for Iron

We came back to Greyhollow with three hundred silver-eyed survivors of the Moon Court walking behind my mother's wagon.

The pack lined the road on both sides and watched them go by.

In the yard behind the Great Hall every thrall in the pack had been told to stand against the wall.

There were ninety-one of them, old and young.

They all wore iron.

Some had worn it for forty years.

I stood in front of them with my wrists bare and my mother at my side.

"Nobody in this yard is a thrall anymore," I said.

Nobody cheered.

They stared at me and did not believe it.

The old woman who had carried water for forty years stepped forward on her own.

She held out her wrists.

I took the first cuff in both hands.

My wrists glowed, and I hummed the three notes, low.

The iron split along its seam and fell in two halves.

She looked at her bare, scarred arm and made a sound I will never forget.

"Next," I said.

They came one at a time.

I hummed, and the iron split, and the halves rang on the stones.

Ninety-one cuffs lay in a heap by the end, and the thralls were crying and holding each other.

The girl from the third row was among them, shaking, with her eyes shining.

She put her bare hand on my sleeve.

"Thank you," she said.

"Stay or go," I said to all of them. "Anyone who stays works for wages. Anyone who goes gets a horse and a letter from me."

A man near the gate dropped to his knees and kissed the stone.

I turned away so no one would see my face.

"Bring them," I said.

The guards brought my cousin first.

She had her arm in splints and her head wrapped, and she was weeping before she reached me.

"I was only playing," she said. "It was a game! Everyone did it. Father said..."

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