Chapter 22: The Land

Freya's POV

I watched them give Hollow Creek its land at noon, in the Stone Hall.

Thane signed the deed himself, in front of the council, with a pen that shook.

I had not slept, and my hands would not stay still in my lap.

Hoyt signed under him.

He signed with the hand that had cut Luther's wire.

His name came out cramped and crooked.

He stood looking at it for a long moment.

"Eight households," he said. "Forty years nobody wanted us.

"Now it says Rudd on a piece of paper."

"It says Hollow Creek," Trudy said, and blew her nose.

I watched from my chair at the foot of the Stone.

The white-braided elder stood on a stool with a chisel, and the mason's hammer rang.

She went over Thane's rough work with the chisel until the letters were deep and square.

FREYA DAHL, LUNA.

She did not stop there.

She cut a second line under it, smaller.

HOLLOW CREEK STANDS BESIDE REDWATER.

"There," the elder said, and got down. "Let them try to pry that out."

Behind me the pack stood quietly along the wall.

Nobody cheered.

A mother put her baby's hand against the first letter of my name, and held it there.

That was the part I felt in my throat.

Thane did not come near me all afternoon.

He did what I had told him to do.

He waited.

At dusk I drove back to the creek alone.

The camp had lit its lanterns.

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