Chapter 21: Stripped

I did not think.

My bitten leg gave way under me, and I let it, and fell forward with the spear in both hands.

The shaft cracked across the Chancellor's wrist as his arm came down.

The knife left his fingers a heartbeat early and spun end over end, wide, into the sand.

It stuck there, humming, two paces from Caelan's boots.

Poynings screamed.

His wrist hung wrong.

I fell on top of him and put my knee on his chest and my forearm across his throat.

"Yield," I said.

"Never," said the Chancellor.

His eyes were wild and his lips were wet.

"Never to the spawn of that spineless boy."

A silence ran across the plain.

It was the quiet of twelve thousand people hearing something they would not be able to forget.

The oldest Alpha of the Moon Court had come to the edge of the spears on her stick.

She was looking at the Chancellor.

"What boy?" she said.

"The prince," said Poynings.

He would not stop.

The wax was gone from his ears, and his pride would not let him hold it back.

"He was going to give the packs a vote.

"He was going to take away the Chancellery.

"The old king was dying and would not name an heir, so I named myself."

"Say it plain, Osmund," said the oldest Alpha.

"I killed the prince and his wife in the road," he said.

"I killed the captain and his wife, when they found the girl.

"I put the silver in the king's cup for a year, and I would do it again, and I would do it better."

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