Chapter 7: In Bud

By noon the whole of Blackmere was standing in the orchard, and nobody was talking.

Sorcha walked down the terrace steps in a borrowed wool dress with her father on one side and the Beta on the other.

Every tree was green. Hundreds of them, in rows, with buds so thick the branches bowed.

The gray-bearded elder who had called her a castoff stood under the first tree with his hat in his hands.

He went down on one knee when he saw her.

Then everyone else did.

"Luna," he said. His voice cracked. "Forgive an old fool. These trees have been dead for two winters."

"I didn't do anything," Sorcha said.

"You slept under our roof," the Beta said gently. "And the orchard woke. I have been trying to find another explanation since dawn."

"I can't find one either."

"Then take the credit, Luna," her father said, a little hoarse. "Somebody ought to."

She looked up the terraces to the Hall.

The Alpha stood at an upper window, a dark shape in the glass.

He was watching her, and he did not come down.

That was when the gate bell rang.

It rang three times, hard.

A sentry came running down the path. "Luna! A woman at the gate. She says she is from Ironwood. She will not give her name to anyone but you."

Sorcha's father put a hand on his empty belt.

"Do not go."

"I'm going."

She knew who it would be before she saw her.

Brianna stood outside the gate alone, with no escort, in a gray traveling cloak that was too thin for the mountain.

She had one hand pressed to the small curve under her ribs, and her lips were blue with cold.

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