Chapter 24: The High Meadow

By the first thaw, the high meadow above the Bloodwood keep was a sheet of mud.

I stood at the edge of it in my old green coat with a mug of tea going cold in my hand.

Six children stood in a line in the middle of it, in boots that were already ruined.

"Hold still," Lucan said.

He was down on one knee in the muck in front of the smallest girl, with her boot across his thigh.

The laces had come undone three times since breakfast.

He tied them in a double knot, tested the knot with a tug and looked up at her with great seriousness.

"If that comes off, I'm taking it as a personal insult," he said.

"It won't," said the smallest girl.

"Good."

"Papa, you're in a puddle."

"I know."

"The Alpha of Ashfall is kneeling in a puddle," Bram announced, to the meadow at large.

"The Alpha of Ashfall is doing his job," Lucan said, and stood up with mud to the knee.

I laughed so hard I had to put the tea on a fence post.

Hoofbeats came up the road behind me.

I turned, and Theron reined in at the gate with a leather case across his saddle.

He was thinner than at the council, and he looked rested.

"Alpha," he said, and bowed his head, the way a man does to a neighbor.

"Alpha Stagg."

"The first hearings," Theron said, and held out the case.

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