Chapter 7: What Tilda Read

The moonstone burned against my fingers.

I took the pieces of my broken half out of my pocket and laid them against Tilda's.

The cracks closed in the light, and the whole chain went silver.

Then I was not on the mountain anymore.

I was standing in Gareth's study at night, and my daughter was at his desk.

Tilda was thin, and her hair was dull, and she was reading by one candle.

There was a stack of letters in front of her, tied in blue ribbon.

She read the top one twice.

Her hand went to her mouth, and she read the second, and the third.

By the fourth she was crying without making a sound.

"Dad," she whispered to the empty room. "How could you?"

The door opened behind her.

Gareth stood in it with the hall lamp at his back.

"You weren't meant to read those," he said.

She stood up so fast the chair went over.

"They're hers. They're all in her handwriting. Cora's mother wrote..."

"Tilda."

"And Cora is..."

His hand closed over her mouth.

It was gentle, and it was immovable.

He held it there until she stopped fighting.

"Emmett," Gareth called without raising his voice. "Come here."

The light faded.

The vision let go of me all at once, and I was kneeling in the snow on the mountain with a silver chain in my hand.

I could still feel the cold of that study floor.

The old Alpha was gone, and so was the Great Elder.

Rowan stood a little way off with his back to me, giving me the dark.

I got up.

"I'm going down," I said.

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