Chapter 20: The Eve

On the eve of the Harvest Moon, Hester made me kneel on the kitchen floor.

"The words," she said. "From the top."

"I, Dara Standifer, daughter of the Alpha of Ashfall..."

"Slower. You say it like you're apologizing."

I said it again, slower.

She walked round me with her cane, correcting my breath, my chin and the angle of my back.

"You enter the ring by blood," she said. "You name your father."

"You do not name the Wycliffes, and you do not ask for anything. You say what you are."

"What if I forget?"

"You won't." She stopped in front of me. "Give me your hand."

I held it out.

She took the silver ring from the cord on my neck and wound red wool tight round the band, three times.

She knotted it and pushed it onto my thumb.

It sat there, snug.

"He wore it on his thumb in the evenings," she said. "When he was thinking."

I looked at the wolf's head on the band for a long time.

"Go on," Hester said, and turned away to the stove.

I saw her wipe her face with the back of her wrist.

"He's waiting on the porch. Don't make him wait for an old woman's tears."

Tobias sat on the top step with his ribs taped under his flannel and his arm in a sling.

"The healers say a week," he said. "I say tomorrow."

"I say you're not fighting."

"I'm not. I'm standing at the back like a guest." He smiled. "I'm just telling you I could."

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