Chapter 10: The Luna's Duel

The duel ring was a circle of packed dirt in the yard behind the Claiming Hall, with torches planted around it.

Four hundred Iron Moon wolves ringed it, and sixty from Silverfen stood on the other side.

The moon was full, and the whole yard was bright as day.

Verity stood across from me in a plain gray fighting shirt.

She had unwrapped her burned hand.

Around both fists she had wound the same silver cord she'd used on the bridge.

"No weapons," Wystan called, from his post at the edge. "That is the law."

"It's thread," Verity said. "It's a blessing from the elders."

"It is not," I said.

"Prove it."

I looked at the pack.

Hundreds of faces watched me, and I could not find one that was on her side.

Not even the ones she had been kind to.

"Fine," I said. "Let her keep it."

Verity grinned.

The old healer raised a white cloth and let it drop.

Verity moved first.

She was fast.

She had always been the fastest girl in the pack, and now she was faster than that.

She slammed into me with a shoulder and caught my wrist in her thread-wrapped hand.

The draw hit me at once.

It was the same slow pull, up through my arm and into my chest, but sharper now, hungry.

My vision went white at the edges.

"There it is," Verity whispered into my ear. "That's what I've been waiting for."

My knees buckled.

The crowd groaned.

I thought of Joran on his knees in the mud.

I thought of every afternoon I'd slept through.

*She can only take what you give,* my wolf said, in a low steady voice. *Stop giving it.*

"How?" I said out loud.

*Say no.*

I closed my eyes.

I said no to the pull the way I had said no to Joran's command on the road.

The draw stopped at once.

Verity gasped.

The thread around my wrist went black and crumbled to ash.

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