Chapter 21: All of It

Ansel's POV

The grass was wet through my trousers, and my shoulder was still bleeding down my arm.

I did not feel it.

I knelt in the middle of the circle with eighty wolves around me, and I did what I had never done in my life.

I opened my mouth and I did not know what would come out.

The vow did not close on my throat.

I waited for it.

Nothing came.

"I'm going to say it in order," I said. "I'm going to say it all."

My voice was hoarse.

"Some of you watched me take this pack at twenty-one with a face like a shut door."

"You thought I was proud. I wasn't proud. I was afraid."

Nobody moved.

"My father swore me to a half of a law, and I took the half as the whole. I didn't ask my grandmother to read me the rest. I didn't ask anyone."

I looked at the ground.

"That's the first wrong. I took someone else's word over hers, and I never asked her."

My voice broke on the last word.

I glanced up, and Freja was standing at the edge of the ring, with her coat on crooked and grass in her hair.

She was looking at me.

"The second wrong is that I let her guess," I said.

"For eight years I watched her walk into a room and find me. I let her think she was clever."

"I watched her cry in a supply closet once. I stood outside the door and didn't knock."

A man in the crowd made a sound in his throat.

"I called it honor," I said. "It wasn't honor. It was cowardice, wearing the vow like a coat."

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