Shattered Sanctuary: The First Luna's Severance novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: The Right of the Tested
The moon came up full and white over Echo Hall, and the right of the tested began.
Eight packs had come back to watch.
They stood in the ring again with their collars up against the cold, and the Moon Stone gleamed in the middle.
Rosalind stood in front of it in a plain gray shirt and loose trousers, barefoot on the frost.
She had no one's hand in hers.
Hamish stood in the front row with his arms at his sides.
He had asked her once, in the office, whether she wanted him to stand at her back.
She had said, "I want you where I can see you."
Across the ring, the Alpha of Redwater took off his coat and handed it to a guard.
"I'll say the old words," he said, "so nobody can say I cheated. I ask the Alpha of Shadow Echoes to prove her seat. I ask her to stand against me until one of us yields."
"I accept," Rosalind said.
He shifted first.
He went down in one rolling movement, and the big gray wolf with the torn left ear shook out its coat.
Rosalind did not rush it.
She stood for a moment with her eyes closed and listened.
Beneath her feet, the Stone hummed.
It was not a tide leaving her chest this time, and it did not go out through her palm to anyone.
It came up through her bare soles, cold and bright, the way it had come the night she tore the bond.
She opened her eyes and let her wolf out.
It was a good deal larger than she had been when she first ran on the ridge.
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