Chapter 15: The Cold Watch

Nobody in the ring said a word while the iron token lay on the stone.

"I locked the Beta of this pack in my cellar this week," Caleb said. "I did it on the word of a flask Maud Hesketh put in her saddlebag."

"I believed the Heskeths over my own Beta. I'd have gone on believing them."

He kept his bandaged hand tucked against his chest and his good hand open at his side.

"The Beta tells me I'd have done worse than that. I can't prove it, and I can't answer it. I've felt what she feels for twelve days, and it's true."

The oldest elder said, hoarsely, "Alpha, what is it you're asking?"

"I'm not asking anything. I'm giving back the seat."

A sound went round the ring, low and shocked.

"The council holds it in trust until the winter moon," Caleb said. "The vote then is the pack's, and I'll take it as it comes."

"Until then I walk the river border at night, with the unranked wolves, on the cold watch."

"You can't," the elder said. "The Alpha doesn't..."

"I'm not the Alpha tonight."

My father stood in the front row with his coat buttoned wrong again.

He looked at the token on the stone, and then at me, and I saw him decide something.

"The council accepts it," the elder said at last, slowly. "For the pack's sake. Not for yours."

"That's right," Caleb said.

He turned and walked out of the ring, and nobody followed him.

I found him at the river after midnight.

The border post was a plank hut with a lantern, a stove that did not draw, and a view of black water going by.

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