After Rebirth, I Broke Our Bond and My Alpha Regretted It novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Clean Hands

The oldest elder granted it, because nobody in the hall could find a reason not to.

By moonrise the whole pack stood in the ring of stones again, in the same torchlight where I had torn the cord.

The silver bowl sat on the Standing Stone, full of spring water, with the moon trembling in it.

"Every voice at a Moon Court washes first," the elder said. "So that what it says is said with clean hands."

Maud went up before anyone called her.

She had pinned her shawl and put on her good brown dress, and she walked slowly, with her head bowed.

"I won't wash for my own good name," she said, and her voice shook with grief. "I'll wash to ask a question the Alpha is afraid to ask."

She looked straight at me.

"Who carried a flask of poison in her saddlebag? Who knew the tin was on my shelf? Who defied the cup, and who has been in my daughter's sickroom every night since?"

The pack stirred.

I heard someone near the front say, "She's got a point," and my father's low voice tell him to hush.

"Then wash, Maud," Ida said from the edge of the ring. "And let's hear what the water says."

Maud's smile did not move.

"Kestrel first," she said. "The accused goes first."

So I went up.

I put my hands into the silver bowl, and the water was so cold that my wrists ached where the iron marks lay.

Nothing happened.

I lifted them out, red from the cold and perfectly whole, and held them up to the torches.

Caleb stood at the foot of the Stone with his bandaged hand against his chest, and the cord between us was quiet and tight.

"Maud Hesketh," the elder said.

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