I Survived My Father's Test and Took His Throne novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Hollow

The Keeper enters Rhiannon in the Test, and when Dorian's wolves storm the stones her wolf wakes and holds the gap; Dorian rides ahead to Northmark.

The Hollow was a ring of black standing stones on top of the hill, older than the palace and older than the kingdom.

We reached it with the torches only a minute behind us.

An old woman stood in the gap between the two tallest stones, holding a staff and a lantern.

She was the Keeper of the Test, and she had held that post since before my father was born.

"You're late, girl," she said. "Show me the ring."

I held up the Seal.

She looked at the red stone for a long moment, and then she looked at my face.

"Osric's eyes," she said. "He's dead, then."

"Dorian shot him."

"I know. The stones told me an hour ago." She did not blink. "Come inside, both of you."

She led us into the ring and set her lantern on the flat altar stone.

Garrick kept his hand on his knife and his back to me, facing the hill.

"Listen once, because there is no time to listen twice," the Keeper said.

"The Test is three nights. Northmark first, then the River, then Iron."

"You stand in each Alpha's hall, in front of his own wolves."

"Each one either swears to you or challenges you. If he challenges, you fight his champion or him, and you win or you die."

"If all three swear, you are the Queen, and no vote and no regent can undo it."

"Only the blood of the king may sit it," she added. "And you must say the words in this circle before the first dawn, with a witness."

"I have a witness," I said, and looked at Garrick.

"A guard's word is worth less than a council's," she said. "But it is the law, and the law doesn't ask for more."

She took a small blade and cut her palm.

"Give me your hand."

I gave it.

She pressed our palms together, and her blood was hot on mine.

"Rhiannon Courtenay, daughter of Osric, do you claim the throne of Wilton by the Test?"

"I claim it."

"Do you swear to stand in every hall?"

"I swear."

"Then you are entered," she said. "The Moon help you."

Below us, the torches reached the foot of the hill.

Garrick turned.

"Fifty at least," he said. "Dorian's own wolves, with rifles."

"They cannot kill her inside the circle," the Keeper said. "The stones forbid it."

"Do the stones stop bullets?" I asked.

"No," she said.

"Then we have a problem."

The first shots cracked off the standing stones.

I dropped behind the altar stone and pulled the Keeper down beside me.

Garrick planted himself in front of the altar with the knife up, between me and the gap.

He did not touch me, as he had sworn, and I felt his nearness anyway.

"Stay there," he said.

"No."

I rose from behind the altar.

The blue coats were pouring through the gap in the stones, rifles up.

Dorian's voice came from somewhere behind them, warm and carrying.

"Don't kill her, I need her breathing. Shoot the guard."

Garrick stepped out to meet them with the knife in his hand and nothing else.

He was going to die in front of me.

Something hot and wild went up my spine, and I let it.

My dress ripped from shoulder to waist.

My bones popped and lengthened, and the pain of it was bright and clean.

The ground rushed up under my hands, and my hands were no longer hands.

I stood in the circle as a wolf for the first time in my life.

I was huge.

My fur was silver and grey, and I stood as high as Garrick's chest.

The nearest blue coat dropped his rifle and screamed.

I hit him and knocked him flat.

I got a second one by the sleeve and flung him at the stones.

The rest scattered back through the gap.

Dorian's voice rose, thin now. "That's not possible. She has no wolf."

I walked toward the gap slowly and stood across it.

Garrick came and stood at my shoulder with the knife.

He did not touch me.

He had given his word, and he kept it.

The blue coats stared at the wolf in the gap, and one by one they lowered their guns.

Dorian did not come in.

I could smell him, sharp and sour, somewhere in the dark below the hill.

Behind me, the Keeper let out a low, delighted laugh.

"Osric would have wept," she said.

I shifted back.

It hurt more than the first time, and I crouched in the torn rags of my dress, shaking.

Garrick took off his coat and set it over my shoulders without looking at me.

Then he looked at the road below, where the torches were pulling back down the hill.

"They aren't running," he said slowly. "They're going somewhere."

The Keeper had gone very still.

"Northmark," she said. "The gates open at dawn."

"And?"

She turned the lantern toward the south.

Far off, on the road to the first Alpha's hall, a single rider in a pale blue coat was galloping ahead of all the rest.

"Your fiancé is already on his way there," she said. "He means to be inside before you."

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