Chapter 22: Greyfall Calls Her Name

The road into Greyfall was lined with people.

I saw them from the car window first, and I thought there had been an accident.

Then the car slowed, and I saw that they were just standing there.

Every wolf in the pack, in coats and boots, in two long rows on either side of the road.

"Torin," I said.

"I see them."

"Why are they standing?"

"I believe," he said gravely, "that they are waiting for you."

He wore a plain flannel shirt and no crown, because I had asked him to.

It did not hide him at all.

When we got out, a little boy pointed at him and said, in a clear carrying voice, "That's the King."

"That's a man in a shirt," his mother whispered.

"He has the king face."

Torin looked down at the boy with perfect solemnity.

"I am off duty," he said.

The boy nodded and accepted this.

I started to laugh, and then the first row of wolves began to clap.

It did not stop.

I walked up the road between them with my hand in Torin's, and every face I passed was one I knew.

The baker, the farrier, the girl who braided hair at the school fair.

The old woman in the grey shawl stood at the end with her chin up.

She took my free hand in both of hers.

"Mythical Silver Wolf," she said, loud and slow. "Say it back to me, child."

"Nessa Carrow," I said.

"Say it back."

I understood.

"Mythical Silver Wolf," I said.

The road erupted.

I had never been cheered for anything in my life.

I stood in the middle of it with my eyes burning.

Torin's hand tightened around mine, and he said nothing, because there was nothing to say.

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