Chapter 13: A Silver Cut

Bronwyn's POV

Hester put a bowl of porridge in front of me and said the raiders had come exactly when I told my husband they would.

"Five dead, one living, two gone," she said. "My brother took twelve riders and told them nothing. He's been locked in his study since dawn."

"Did he say anything about me?"

"He didn't say anything about anything. That's how I know it's bad."

I ate without tasting it.

I had named a night and an hour, and men had died on that hour.

I should not have been able to know it, and the only person who had not asked me how was shut behind a door.

I went to the study and knocked.

"Not now, Bronwyn," Torin said through the wood.

His voice was wrong.

It was flat and careful, the way it had been the night I said Lucian's name in my sleep.

I stood there with my hand on the door and was afraid for him, and I did not know what to call that.

Out in the yard, the Highgate riders were saddling for a morning hunt.

Lucian lifted a hand to me across the cobbles and did not come over.

Linnet sat on the hall steps with a mug of cider, kicking her boots against the stone like a girl at a fair.

"Bron! Did you hear there was trouble in the night? Nobody will tell me a thing."

"Sheep," I said.

"Dull," she said cheerfully, and drank.

Near noon the bell at the gate rang once.

A single rider came up the road on a grey horse white with foam.

I knew the way he sat before I could see his face.

The gate warden stepped out with a hand up. "Weapons, Alpha."

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