The Silver Wolf novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Sworn

Cormick's POV

I walked into the valley with a whole body for the first time in sixteen days.

It felt wrong.

I kept waiting for the wound to pull, and it didn't.

The oath was gone from me.

I had carried it for eleven years.

Now the back of my neck was bare, and the air on it was cold.

Calla walked on my left in a plain grey sweater and her mother's boots.

She hadn't said a word since Hattie's gate.

"You're quiet," I said.

"I'm thinking."

"About what?"

"What I'm going to say to two hundred people."

"You'll think of something."

"That's not the answer I wanted."

"It's the one I've got."

She looked at me sideways, and her mouth moved at one corner.

It was the first time I'd seen her smile since the cave.

The trail came down through the cedar into the dark.

The sound of the pack grew with every step.

Voices, boots, a baby crying somewhere.

We stopped at the last row of pines.

The clearing lay open in front of us, lit by the full moon and a ring of torches.

The Altar stood in the middle of it, flat and grey.

Edric stood on it, in his tailored jacket with his hands folded, and he was speaking.

I could not hear the words yet.

Lorelei stood on his left, in white.

I looked at her, and I knew the dress.

She'd worn it to the rite.

Calla had stopped moving.

"Is that Alder?" she said.

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