Out of the Shadow at Last novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Tithe Collector

Father stood outside the Northgate gate in the grey light, with the collector at his shoulder.

He was alone.

His coat was torn at the hem, and his boots were black with river mud.

He had walked down into the Greywater a Rooke, and he looked like a man who had been lent back.

Ivar opened the gate himself.

Half the Fair crowded the walls above us, and the Alphas stood in a line in the yard, with their packs at their backs.

"Corbin," said the oldest Alpha. "You have no standing here."

"I know it," Father said. "I have come to settle my own account."

His voice was dry and level.

It was the voice he used for ledgers.

"The Court has agreed to hear a proposal," he said. "I would like it said in front of you, so nobody can claim afterward they weren't told."

"Say it," Ivar said.

Father turned his head.

He looked at me, for the first time since the council, with no expression at all.

"I offer the Court the Rooke border," he said. "As it was held for seven years, by the girl who holds it."

"For one drop a year, forever. She has the Seal. She has the gift. It would cost her nothing."

"It cost her seven years," Anders said from behind me, in a voice I didn't recognise.

"She sleeps through it, boy."

"No," I said.

I stepped out in front of Ivar.

My legs were not quite steady, and I put my hand on the cord at my neck.

"My name was on that cloak, Father," I said. "You cut it out and gave it to Posy."

"You took my blood without asking, and you wrote my life down in a ledger as an item you hadn't foreseen."

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