Chapter 20: The Cost

Dorian came to the longhouse that afternoon with a wooden box under his arm and a roll of paper in his fist.

The Ashfall elders sat along the long table.

Kellan stood at my shoulder.

I sat with my hands folded on the wood, because I had decided I would not get up for him.

Dorian did not sit.

"I'm here to put two things on this table," he said. "Neither is a bargain."

"We'll decide that," said the old man with the cane.

Dorian set the box down and laid the roll on top of it.

"This is the deed to the Stroud grove."

"The hill where the moonfruit tree stands, and the forty acres around it."

"It's been in my family since the pack began, and it's the last land I own."

The old man's cane stopped tapping.

"It isn't yours, Elora, and it isn't Ashfall's."

"I've put it in Lyra Tolbert's name, held by her mother until she's grown."

"Three Stonehollow elders witnessed it this morning."

I stared at the roll.

"The tree isn't Stonehollow's anymore," I said.

"The tree is hers."

"You've just made yourself nobody."

"I was nobody the night I put the fruit in Rhea's hand," Dorian said. "I'm only finishing it."

He opened the box.

Inside lay a stack of yellowed paper tied with a cord, and a small black ledger.

"My father's papers. His private ledger, and the letters he kept from Rhea's mother."

I looked at Kellan.

Kellan's face was unreadable.

"Read them," Dorian said to the elders. "Out loud, if you like."

"They are the reason all of this happened."

"I won't hide them in a drawer to save my father's name."

The old man drew the ledger across the table and turned the pages with one thick finger.

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