Chapter 20: Witness

I did not take her hands.

I walked around them, up to the front of the hall.

I stopped in front of the three elders in their stiff chairs.

My knees were shaking, and I let them shake.

"I'm a daughter of this pack," I said. "I've sat under these antlers since I was four."

The oldest elder, a man with a deeply lined face, looked at me and said nothing.

"I want to ask you something," I said. "Under our own law."

"Wynne, dear," said Winifred, behind me.

"Is it true that the old gift pact needs the seals of three elders?"

The old man's eyes went to Winifred and came back.

"It does," he said slowly.

"And that the daughter named in it must be asked, in front of the council, whether she'll go?"

"That is the law."

"Did any of you seal a pact for me?"

The silence was long.

Beside him, the old woman with the white braid put her hands in her lap.

"No," she said. "No one has put a pact in front of this council in thirty years."

"Were you asked about me, at any time?"

"Never."

"Were any of you asked?"

The third elder, who had not spoken, shook his head, and his jaw was tight.

I turned around.

The whole hall was watching.

"Winifred has a paper," I said. "Let's see it."

"It's a formality, dear. The council's seals can be added after."

"After the child is born?" said the woman Alpha from up the coast, sharply.

"The custom is flexible."

"The custom is not flexible," the woman said. "I have witnessed two."

She ticked them off on her fingers.

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