She Killed Me Once, So This Time the Whole Pack Is Watching novel · Chapter 23 of 24
Chapter 23: The Witness
The feast filled the moon hall to the doors.
Somebody had scrubbed the boards, and somebody else had hung new cedar over the cracked dais.
The pack ate at long tables under the lanterns, loud and a little wild.
I sat at the head table between Bram and Tobin, in a dress borrowed from Bram's cousin.
Father sat across from me with his side bound, eating a leg of venison one-handed.
It was the first time in my life I had seen him eat at the same table as me and not look at the door.
"Pass the bread," Tobin said.
"Pass it yourself."
"I have three broken ribs."
"You have two," said the old healer from the next table.
"Ask me how it feels."
"Tobin," I said, "if you say 'ill' again I'll break the third one."
He laughed so hard he had to hold his side.
Father smiled into his plate.
It was small and crooked, and it was the first I'd seen since the river.
The Alpha rose and rapped the table with his cup.
"Cinderfell."
The hall quieted.
"For eight hundred years we have said a thing to each other when a hurt happens behind a closed door. We say, 'It's a family matter.'" He looked down the long room. "I said it myself, four days ago, to a woman who came to me with a burn on her arm. She told me then what would happen. I did not listen."
Nobody breathed.
"Tonight there is a new seat in this hall. The Witness. Its holder hears any pack member who is hurt by their own house, in private, and may call the elders on their word alone. No one may call it a family matter. No one may refuse her."
He turned.
"Rosalind Greer. Will you sit?"
My chair scraped.
I stood.
Three hundred and seventy people were looking at me, and for the first time in my life, I didn't mind.
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