Chapter 15: Kneel Before Her

They had put Osric in the Moot Hall cellar, in the same cell where I had spent two nights.

He sat on the cot with his hands loose between his knees.

The silver ring was still on his finger.

Kellan had not taken it yet.

"Brigid," Osric said when I came down the stairs. "You look well. The bite agrees with you."

I said nothing.

"Pour it," he said to Hester, who stood at the bars with a cup.

"I'll drink it myself. Let the whole pack come and listen."

"Why?" Kellan asked.

"Because you've never once asked me a question that mattered, boy." Osric smiled. "Ask it now, and I'll answer."

Hester's mouth went flat.

"It's a trap," she muttered to me. "He wants an audience."

"He has one," I said.

By noon the Moot Hall was full again.

They stood three deep along the walls.

My parents were not among them.

The old elder with the cane sat at the council table.

Beside him sat the two other elders who had been on the council the night of my exile.

Osric stood in the middle of the floor where I had stood.

Hester gave him the cup.

He drank it without a word, wiped his mouth, and lifted his chin.

The room waited.

Kellan walked to the center and stopped an arm's length away.

He looked older than yesterday.

"Did you put wolfsbane in Brigid's cup?" he said.

I saw Osric's jaw fight it.

It did not hold.

"Yes," he said.

A hiss ran through the hall.

"Did you carry it to my trial for that purpose?"

"Yes. I knew her body was starving. I thought she'd be dead before she finished the first sentence."

"Why?"

"Because I knew what she would say."

Osric's voice was smooth, and his hands were shaking.

"I have known for fifteen years what that girl would say, if anyone ever asked her."

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