Chapter 17: The Wards Stone

The blade at Sorcha's throat was silver.

She felt it burn the second it touched her skin, and her small new light shrank back into her chest.

"Walk," Corbin whispered.

"You're going to cut me."

"Not if you walk. Please, Sorcha."

"Take that off my neck."

"I can't." His breath shook against her ear. "If I take it off, you'll stop me."

She walked.

He steered her down the dark corridor, past the sleeping wounded, and not one of them stirred.

Her father was at the far end of the hall in the sickroom.

She thought of screaming, and the silver bit a little deeper.

They went through the kitchens and down a stair she had never been allowed to use.

At the bottom, a cold stone hollow opened under the hall, and in the middle of it stood the wards stone.

It was black and taller than a man, and a crack ran down its face from top to bottom.

Corbin let go of her arm and kept the knife where it was.

"Here," he said.

"What is this?"

"The rite. My father kept it in a book he never showed me. I found it in his desk."

He was laughing, and it was not a good sound.

"The heir's blood and a Graced wolf's blood on the stone. It remakes the wards, and it remakes the heir."

"Remakes him how?"

"My wolf comes back." His voice cracked. "Sorcha, I haven't heard him in nine days. I can't hear anything. I lie in the dark and I'm empty."

"That's what you wanted when you let go of me."

"I didn't know!"

"You did. Your mother told you the bond was feeding you. I heard her say it in the hall."

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