The Moon She Waited Under novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: What He Owed

Lucan didn't look at the pack.

He looked at Ilse, with her back against the slab and my arm across her chest.

"I gave the order," he said.

A sound went through the slope.

"The south ridge, fourteen months ago. Your husband told me it was a bad night for it, and I sent the patrol anyway, because I wanted the fence walked."

"You see?" Ilse said, and her voice cracked with triumph. "You see what he is?"

"There was a trap on the ridge. Silver wire, and a Red Creek man with a rifle. It was meant for me."

He took a breath.

"Your husband saw the wire before I did. He put himself between us."

Ilse went still under my arm.

"He lived four hours. He was in the grass by the creek, and I held his head, and I couldn't get the wire off him." His voice stayed level. "He asked me what I'd say to you."

"You told me it was quick," Ilse whispered.

"He asked me to say that. He said, tell her it was quick, and tell her I wasn't scared."

"He wasn't?"

"He was scared," Lucan said. "He was sorry, and he was scared, and he asked me to look after you. I said quick because he asked me to. I've said it every day since."

Ilse made a small, torn sound.

For a moment I thought she might actually break.

Then her chin came up, and her face closed.

"It doesn't matter," she said. "It doesn't change what he is."

"It changes what you are," said the woman who ran the council.

She had come up through the crowd with the other four behind her, and her voice carried farther than Ilse's ever had.

"You forged a Luna's handwriting seven times. You sold the south ridge. You put a knife in front of children." She held out her palm. "The seal."

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