Chapter 24: Her Name

The roof went on an hour before sundown.

The last tile was set by the girl from the swing, handed up the ladder by Bram, with her tongue between her teeth.

By dusk the great hearth in the Aldane hall was swept, and Maud had laid the first fire.

Nobody had lit it.

They were all waiting, the thirty of us from the yard and the twelve elders in their grey cloaks.

The Stonefell wolves stood along the wall.

Elspeth stood by the door with a loaf in her hands and flour still on her nose.

My cousin brought me the taper.

It was a plain candle end, burned low.

"It's one of the autumn ones," he said. "From the chapel. Maud kept them all."

I took it.

The wick was black, and the wax had run down the sides.

Seven years of candles had been lit in a dead man's chapel for people who were not supposed to exist.

I held it to the kindling.

The hearth caught.

The light ran up the new walls, over the beams and the swept floor, and the faces of the people I belonged to.

The girl pulled at my sleeve.

"Now," she whispered.

I turned to face the room.

Bram stood at the back with his arms folded and his eyes bright.

I had said that name in the dark, in a cold chamber, with silver on my wrists and everything to lose.

I had said it once as a dare and once as a weapon.

This time there was nothing to win.

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