Chapter 21: The Moon Rite

"It wants you," Rowena said again.

"Then it's a better judge of people than I'd have guessed," I said.

She came another step into the room, and Dane moved with her, keeping himself in the way.

"Take it off me," she said. "You can. I've watched it reach for your hands."

"And then?"

"And then you may have everything."

"The baby will be the heir, and I'll call it mine in front of the clans and the king."

"No one will ever know what I am."

I looked at her blistered arm, and at the roots in her shoulder, and at the grey smear where the silver had burned.

I had thought I'd feel something.

I felt about as much as I would for a stain on a tablecloth.

"No," I said.

Rowena's mouth shook.

"No?"

"You'll stand in front of the clans in your own skin. That's all I'm asking."

"And if the clans see it?"

"Then they see it. It's more than you ever gave her."

The pity went out of her face.

What took its place was older and much uglier, the look of a child who has been caught and who will do anything now, anything at all.

"Then I'll stand there," she said softly. "And you'll be standing next to me, with that belly. And we'll see whose skin they like."

Dane took her by the good arm and walked her to the stair.

She didn't resist.

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