Chapter 13: The Circle

The yard at dawn was white, and three hundred wolves had trampled a ring into the snow.

The seven envoys sat on a bench at the edge of it, wrapped in grey and red wool.

Corvin came through the gate with his dozen riders behind him.

The riders walked slowly, with grey faces and sunken eyes.

Corvin did not look sick at all.

His eyes were bright and his gloved hands were steady, and that frightened me more than the shaking had.

Ronan walked me to the edge of the ring.

"Say it," he said quietly. "Whatever you want to say."

"I want a promise."

He went still.

"I said no promises," I said. "I'm asking for one anyway."

"Ask."

"If it goes badly, you don't cross the line. If you step into the ring, the fight is his and the seat is gone."

His jaw locked.

"Ronan."

"You have it," he said. "I promise."

It cost him something to say it, and I saw what.

I handed my cloak to Hester and stepped into the snow in my shirt and trousers.

Across the ring, Corvin pulled a small flask from inside his coat and drank from it.

I smelled it from where I stood, bitter and green, crushed silverroot in oil.

"That is not a Greyfell remedy," Hester muttered behind me.

Corvin threw the flask down and dropped to his knees.

His bones cracked the wrong way, one after another, and the sound ran around the yard.

When he came up he was a gold wolf, too thin, with red in his eyes and foam on his teeth.

The hall gasped.

He had not shifted since the night of the feast.

Somebody had given him a way to do it.

"Catriona MacNair," the senior envoy called. "Do you meet the challenge?"

"I do."

I let go.

I had not let my wolf run in front of anyone for ten years.

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