Chapter 7: What the Elders Wanted

"Why?" I said.

Drew looked at the ground.

"Because the Beta told Rowan that the first kind word anyone spoke to you would be the last," he said.

"Rowan told us. I was fourteen. I believed it."

"A kind word would have killed me?"

"I don't know." His voice broke. "I never asked. I told myself the bread was enough."

It had not been enough, and he knew it. I could see him knowing it.

I turned my head and looked at the Beta.

He had gone the color of paper.

"Not here," Rowan said. His voice was hoarse. "Council room. All of it. In front of everyone."

So the whole pack of Ashgrove crowded into the council hall in the middle of the night.

They stood shoulder to shoulder along the walls, soot-black and bleeding.

I sat at the long table in Lucan's coat, and Lucan stood at my back.

The three elders sat in their usual chairs, because nobody had told them not to.

The Beta stood at the head, where he had stood that noon, and could not seem to start.

"Say it," Rowan said.

"Eighteen years ago," the Beta said, "the elders came to Alpha Henry on the night your mother died."

He did not look at me. He looked at the table.

"They said a child born of a rogue's attack would curse the pack."

"They said it should be put in the sea before it drew a second breath."

The room made a low sound.

The oldest elder rose half out of his chair.

"That is a lie," he said. "We counseled caution. Nothing more."

"You counseled drowning a newborn," the Beta said.

For the first time he raised his voice.

"I wrote it in the minute book. Your marks are under it."

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