Chapter 12: The Moon Rite

The Moon Rite was held in a ring of standing stones behind Henshaw Hall, and the old moon hung pale over it at noon.

Every pack in the valley had come.

Three hundred wolves stood shoulder to shoulder in the snow.

The Council chair sat on a bench beside the ring fire, a heavy woman in a grey fur cloak.

Dalton stood in the circle in white.

He had dressed for it, as if we were still going to be married.

When I came through the gap in the stones, he turned and smiled at me, and the whole ring went quiet.

Rodrick walked a step behind me, with his coat buttoned over the bandages and the MacAlister pack at his back.

My mother stood among them.

She had come up the mountain at dawn and said nothing to me, and I had said nothing to her.

My father stood on the Henshaw side of the fire.

He wouldn't look at me.

"Tegan Haskins," the chair said. "You are held under a MacAlister debt claim, and you stand here before the packs to answer it."

"Yes."

"The claim is that you are payment for the blood of Tam MacAlister. Do you accept it, or do you refuse it?"

"Chair," Dalton said, very gently. "Before she answers. May I speak?"

"After her."

"She's been in the hands of the MacAlisters for three days. She isn't well."

"After her," the chair said again, and her voice could have cracked a plate.

I stepped into the ring.

My knees were not steady, so I locked them.

"I want to tell you what was done to me," I said.

Nobody stirred.

"On my wedding day my mother put a sleeping draught in a glass of milk, in front of all of you. She did it to get me out of Dalton Henshaw's reach."

A low noise ran around the ring.

"She told me she would do it again, and I believe her. I haven't forgiven her."

I didn't look at my mother.

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