Chapter 16: The Circle

I walked around the canvas and pushed the flap aside.

"He did let me sign," I said.

Oswin turned.

Corwin stood beside the broken box with a small folded paper in his fist, and when he saw me his whole face opened.

I did not look at him yet.

"I signed because I thought he'd chosen a treaty over me," I said to Oswin.

"He signed because he thought I'd chosen my father over him."

"We were both wrong, and we were both wrong because of you."

"You eavesdrop well," Oswin said.

"I learned it from your sister."

I crossed the tent and took the paper out of Corwin's hand.

My own writing looked back at me.

I read it once, standing there, and my hand did not shake until the last line.

Then I folded it and tucked it into my dress against my skin.

I swept the seal, the draft decree and the broken lock into the cloth of my cloak.

"I have the Fen's ferryman at the flap," I said.

"If anything in this tent burns tonight, I will say your name in front of the Moot."

Oswin looked at the cloak in my arms.

His mouth twisted.

"Dawn, then," he said. "In the circle. He can barely stand."

"I can stand," Corwin said.

"We'll see."

He walked out past me, whistling under his breath.

The Moot's circle is a ring of white stones on the lake shore, forty paces across, laid on packed sand.

At dawn two hundred wolves stood three deep around it, and every pack's banner hung limp in the mist.

Corwin took off his coat and shirt at the edge.

His ribs were purple from hip to armpit.

I wrapped them in a linen strip, tight, and I felt him flinch.

"You're not going to be able to breathe," I said.

"I'm not going to be able to breathe either way," he said. "Stay out of it."

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