Chapter 21: Silver

Dorian's boots left the step, and his hands came up to Ansel's wrist.

The fingers on his throat were thick and warm, and they squeezed with no hurry at all.

"You see?" Ansel said to the yard. "No voice. No pack. Nothing."

Dorian could not answer.

He could hear his own blood.

He looked past the grey beard at the crowd, and found Rosalind two steps above, white-faced, with her hand already half raised.

He knew what she was going to do.

She was going to call it, the oath voice, and break the man in front of everyone.

He did not want her to spend it on him.

He drove his knee up into Ansel's belly.

Ansel grunted, and for one breath the fingers loosened.

Dorian twisted out of the grip and hit the packed snow on his hands and knees, gasping.

"Perrin," he rasped. "Stay back."

Perrin, who had taken three strides toward him, stopped.

"This is mine," Dorian said.

He got to his feet slowly.

His throat was on fire, and the burns across his back had split open under the shirt.

The wolf in him, which had been silent for a week, lay in the dark of his chest and did not stir.

He had no claws and no pack and no voice.

He had two fists and a good reason.

"Come on, then," said Ansel, and smiled.

They met in the yard in front of three hundred people.

Ansel was heavier and meaner, and he had fought for thirty years.

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