Chapter 16: Chalk on the Plinth

Kellan did not answer Osric.

He turned his back on the door and looked at the north wall of the hall.

Aldric's portraits hung there in a row, six of them, in gilt frames.

In every one, he was smiling.

"Bring me a hammer," Kellan said.

Nobody moved.

"A hammer," he said again, louder. "And a ladder. I will not sleep under him another night."

A boy from the back ran out.

The pack watched in silence as he came back with both.

Kellan climbed the ladder himself.

He took the first frame by its top edge.

For a long moment he looked at the face he had shaved around every morning.

Then he let go.

The portrait hit the stone and the glass burst across the floor.

A sound came out of the crowd, half a gasp and half a cheer.

He took down the second, and the third.

On the fourth he stopped.

It was the one of Aldric holding a small boy on his shoulders at the harvest feast.

The boy was eight, and laughing.

I knew the boy.

I had made him that shirt.

Kellan's hands shook on the frame.

I crossed the floor and stood at the foot of the ladder.

"You don't have to," I said quietly.

"Yes, I do."

"He was good to you."

"He was good to me," Kellan said. "And he walked to a creek and did that to your sister."

He threw the frame down.

It broke in half.

He took down the rest.

When the wall was bare he came down the ladder and picked up the hammer.

He walked out into the square.

The statue of Aldric stood in the middle of it.

It was bronze, twice life size, on a granite plinth, with one hand raised over the valley.

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Hid My Sister's Killer, So the Alpha Poured Truth Down My Throat from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.