Out of the Shadow at Last novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Siege

Ivar's POV

I had stood on the Northgate wall a thousand times, and I had never seen the river empty.

The Greywater lay bare and black in the afternoon, and everything that lived in it was on our side.

They stood in ranks along the shingle below the wall, pale and silent, three hundred at least.

They wore long dark coats and not one of them had drawn a blade.

They didn't need to.

"Tell me the wards will hold," I said.

Bram was beside me with a bow in his hands.

"The old ones will hold till dusk," he said. "Maybe."

"And then?"

"And then we find out how good your champion is."

He said it lightly, and his knuckles were white.

Below us, the ranks parted.

A tall figure in grey walked out onto the shingle with his hands open, as a herald does under a flag.

I knew the flag.

It was the same pale crescent on black as the wax on the note.

"Alpha Halvorsen," the vampire called up, and his voice carried without effort. "I am the Court's collector. I have come for what is owed."

"Nothing is owed here," I said.

"Not by you. By Rooke."

"Rooke has been stripped of his rank, and he is in my hall under guard."

"I know," said the collector. "I watched the council from the hill."

My neck prickled.

"Then you know the debt is his," I said. "Take it up with him."

"The debt is written on a drop, Alpha. Seven drops, paid, and the eighth withheld."

"The Court does not forgive a withheld drop."

"You'll get no drop."

"Then we'll take the whole wall," said the collector, pleasantly. "Hollow Night is only the first night. We have until the moon turns."

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