Chapter 4: Northmark

Northmark's hall was a grey stone fortress with a thousand wolves packed into its yard.

We walked through the gate at dawn, and the whole yard went silent.

I wore Garrick's coat over a borrowed servant's skirt.

My hands were still bloody, and I did not wipe them.

The Northmark Alpha sat on a black chair at the end of the hall, a huge old man with one white eye and a scar from his ear to his jaw.

Dorian sat on a stool at his right hand.

He had washed his face and put on a fresh blue coat.

He looked up and gave me a grieving, gentle look, and any wolf in Wilton would have fallen for it.

"Rhiannon," he said. "Thank the Moon you're alive."

My wolf wanted his throat.

I made myself keep walking.

"Alpha of Northmark," I said. "I am Rhiannon Courtenay, daughter of Osric. I have come to sit the Test."

A murmur ran through the yard.

The old Alpha leaned forward.

"You have a lot of nerve, girl," he said. "The whole kingdom heard last night that you shot your own father."

"I did not."

"Dorian says you did. Your uncle says you did."

"Dorian shot him," I said. "He put the gun in my lap afterward. I have it on the ring."

I held up the Seal.

The red stone caught the morning light.

Dorian's face did not change, but his hand closed on his knee.

The Keeper had told me one thing on the road: put the stone to the wall, and it would play what the king's hand had seen.

I stepped up to the stone wall behind the black chair and pressed the ring against it.

Light spilled out across the grey rock.

It showed a low, jerking view of the Moonhall, from the height of my father's hip.

It showed Dorian lift the gun.

It showed me, wide-eyed, with nothing in my hands.

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