Chapter 22: Exposed

Hallvard's face did not move for a long moment.

I had shifted back where I stood, and I knelt in the red snow in a torn shirt, with a rogue's blade wound burning in my shoulder.

I watched the new Alpha decide to lie.

"This man is raving," Hallvard said, loud and level. "He's a rogue chief. He would say anything to make us break our own peace."

"I would say what's true," the chief answered. "You gave me your word and your ring."

He held up his hand.

On his smallest finger sat a heavy silver ring with a wolf's head carved into the face.

Every wolf in that yard knew the ring.

It was the Kroll family ring, and it had never left Hallvard's hand.

Hallvard's hand closed on his bare finger.

He had worn it for thirty years.

"I gave you that," he said, before he could stop himself, "to keep your men off the road."

It fell into the snow between them.

Nobody breathed.

The elders stood in a row, the eldest white-faced, and one of them said, in a very small voice, "Hallvard."

Torben stepped out from the ring of wolves with his teeth bared.

Anders came up beside me and laid his hand on my back.

He had shifted, and he was naked and bloody and shaking with rage.

He did not take his eyes from his uncle.

"You taught me to count the stars," he said. "You taught me to read the ground."

"Nephew..."

"Was any of it true?"

Hallvard looked at him, and for a moment I saw a man older than he had ever seemed.

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