Chapter 16: Terms, You Said

Thora's POV

Forty Alphas turned in their chairs and looked at me, and I did not care.

"Clear the hall," I said to the nearest guard.

He looked at Caspian.

"The ward asked," Caspian said. "Do it."

They went out in a long shuffling line.

The old coastal Alpha went last, and he gave me a nod as he passed.

The Stonefall Alpha gave me nothing at all.

The doors shut.

There was a fire on the hearth and a smell of burnt paper, and a black ring on the stone where the old law had been.

I walked down the hall to it and stood looking into the ashes.

"The housekeeper told me you were doing it," I said. "She sent a car. I told her I'd walk."

"Eleven miles."

"Four. I got a lift from a man with a hay truck."

"Thora."

"I came to say something."

"Then say it."

"Don't you tell me to say it. I'm tired of you handing me permission."

He stopped.

I turned around.

He was standing three yards off with his hands empty and soot on his cuff, and he looked like he hadn't slept since I left.

"You burned it," I said.

"I couldn't repeal it."

"You burned it in front of the people who like it. Two of them walked out. I passed them on the steps."

"Yes."

"Why?"

He didn't answer.

"Say it," I said. "You promised you'd never lie, and you've been very careful not to tell me anything for a month. Say why."

"Because you came to me wearing no shoes," he said, and his voice cracked down the middle.

"Because I watched you take the Crown's keeping like a stranger's coat, and you never once asked what I wanted."

I stared at him.

"You wrote a rule that I never lie, and you took every kindness as a bill," he said. "I carried your bag. I wrote you a note about soup."

"You stood in the pines outside a cabin gate for two nights."

"You knew?"

"The guard told the housekeeper, and the housekeeper told me."

"Then you knew I wasn't trading," he said. "And you still went on thinking there was a bill."

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