Chapter 5: Twenty-Eight Days

By the time I got to the front hall, my mother was already on the steps with her hand out to Bastian.

"Your Majesty. We came as soon as we heard the invitation was open."

"It isn't an invitation," Bastian said. "It's a tradition."

"And we honor it." She smiled up at him. "The Chosen should have her family near her. Especially a girl like Ivy. She's so easily overwhelmed."

She hadn't looked at me.

She did now.

"Sweetheart. You left without your coat."

I had never owned a coat.

Lottie came up the steps behind her and flicked one end of my blue scarf over her shoulder.

"I brought my dress for the Ascension," she said to Bastian. "In case."

"In case of what?" he asked.

She just smiled.

My father shook the Beta's hand and asked about the fishing on the lake.

Nobody said a word about my cheek.

The Council arrived all afternoon.

Trucks and SUVs lined the drive down to the water.

Alphas from every pack in the north came up the steps with their Betas and their mates.

Some of them looked at my wrist.

Most of them looked at Lottie, who stood by the door in white greeting every single one.

That night there was a welcome dinner in the great hall.

The ceiling was high and dark, with a round opening in the center of the roof.

A glass cover sat over it now.

"They take the glass off for the Ascension," The beta told me. "So the moon can see in."

There were four long tables and one short one across the top.

I sat at the short one, on Bastian's right.

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