Chapter 24: Ashfall's Table

Ashfall's first Feast was held at dusk in the field below the Compact's wall.

We had built the table ourselves, out of tent poles and planks.

Two hundred wolves came.

I had expected twenty.

Blackpine came in a long column with the black banner and its silver pine at the head.

They sat down on the benches without being asked.

Stonewater brought barrels.

The Warden came alone, in her gray coat, with her iron key hung on her belt.

Odessa gave her the best seat and a cup of her own awful coffee.

Even the Alpha of Red Lake came, wearing his sourest face.

He set a roasted pig on the end of the table without a word and sat down as far from me as the planks allowed.

"That's an apology," Bram whispered.

"That's a pig."

"In Red Lake, it's the same thing."

I stood at the head of the table in a plain green dress with my braid down my back.

The full moon hung in the gap between two hills, round and gold.

On the table in front of me a whole elk steamed on its board.

I had asked for it myself.

Ronan sat at my right hand in his black coat, with the signet on his finger.

His wolf was quiet and warm inside him for the first time in three years.

He had put on weight in three days.

He had also not stopped looking at me since the sun went down.

"Wolves of Ashfall," I said.

The talk died down.

"Wolves of Blackpine, Stonewater, Red Lake, and everyone who came to eat my elk."

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