Chapter 15: The Teacup

Torin's POV

I walked to the doors with the whole hall watching my back.

The two wardens stood with their hands on the bars.

They were young, and they wore the estate's grey, and they had been given an order by a woman they had known since they were children.

"Open it," I said.

"Cora said to hold it," said the taller one.

"Who do you answer to?"

He looked at Cora.

I let the gold come up behind my eyes, and I let the room feel the Beta's weight for the first time in five years.

I had kept it down so long I'd stopped believing it was mine.

Both wardens went to their knees.

I lifted the bars myself, one and then the other, and set them on the floor.

The doors swung wide, and sunlight fell down the aisle.

Nobody went out.

That was a mistake on Cora's part, I thought, and then I turned around and saw my father.

He sat in the Alpha's chair with both hands white on the arms.

Sweat stood on his forehead.

On the dais beside him was his steel flask, the one that had gone everywhere with him since the winter, and his cup beside it, half empty.

He had been tired for months.

I had called it age.

I had called it grief for my stepmother, and then for his own sister.

I had let Cora tell me what the healer thought.

I crossed the dais, and picked up the cup, and smelled it.

Tea, honey, and under them a thin, bitter green edge that I knew from the healer's garden.

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