Chapter 23: The Second Signing

We did it at noon, in the middle of the lodge hall, with the doors open.

Both packs came.

The Ridge filled the benches.

The Fen's eleven old wolves stood along the north wall, with Hetta propped on a chair at the front.

She glared at everyone who dared to sit nearer.

The grey leather ledger lay open on the high table.

The elder with the heavy jaw stood beside it with the Ridge's seal in his hand.

The Alpha could no longer press it alone.

Corwin walked to the table and stopped.

He had put on the black coat. His ribs were still strapped under it, and he stood very straight.

On the board beside the ledger lay a braided cord, black and silver, gone slack.

It was the one I had laid by his plate on the night I left.

He had kept it.

"Tilda Stradling," he said, in front of everyone. "I am not asking you to sign under my name."

He held out the pen to me, butt first.

"I am asking you to sign first."

A rustle ran through the hall, and I saw the old women of the Ridge look at one another.

I took the pen.

I wrote my name at the top of the page in my own plain hand.

Tilda Stradling of the Fen.

I did not write a title.

I held the pen out to him, and he signed beneath me, slowly, with his hand quite steady.

Corwin Bexley, Alpha of Kestrel Ridge.

The elder pressed the seal into the wax beside our names.

It was cold, and it stayed where it was put.

Corwin picked up the slack cord and put one end into my palm.

We braided it together, black over silver, with the whole hall watching, and tied it around both our wrists.

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