Chapter 18: The Cards

Nobody on the rim said a word.

Sonja Kincaid stood up from her chair and smoothed her coat.

"A dying man will say anything to buy himself a clean death," she said.

Her voice was perfectly steady.

"He was my champion for eleven years. He was loyal until he lost. Look at what he says now."

Nobody answered her.

The old man from the trees stepped to the edge of the rim.

"The challenge is settled," he said, loudly, and his voice shook.

"By the law, the Ashworth stands on this ground. The law is satisfied."

Another voice from the crowd said it after him, and another.

Sonja looked at the old man for a long time.

"I will remember who spoke," she said, and walked out of the light with her two council members behind her.

Tiernan came down the ramp to me.

He wrapped his jacket around my bare shoulders and said nothing at all.

I leaned into him because I could not stand up by myself.

"The locket," I said.

I opened my fist.

The chain was bent, and the clasp was broken.

Tiernan's thumb pressed the catch, and the case opened.

Inside was a tiny photograph of a strawberry-blonde woman holding a baby.

I put it around my neck, and my hands finally started to shake.

At dawn I sat at the long table in the pack house kitchen with a mug of coffee going cold.

The doctor had put stitches in my shoulder.

Roth sat across from me.

Tiernan had invited him in himself, saying the words out loud on the front step with his jaw clenched.

Keep reading free with an account. Start From Broke Technician to Luna from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.