Chapter 12: The Cells

They put us in the same cell on purpose.

It was my uncle's idea of a joke.

The cell was a stone box under the east tower, with one cot, one bucket and a grate high in the wall.

The jailer pried the king's ring out of my fist, finger by finger, and carried it upstairs.

I watched it go and did not say a word.

Corwin sat against the wall with his wrists bleeding where the irons had been, and said nothing either.

At dawn, sound came down through the grate.

The cells ran beneath the Moon Hall, and the old stone carried every footstep.

I climbed onto the cot and put my eye to the iron.

Below me, in the pale light of the great round room, my uncle was crowning himself.

Three hundred wolves stood in lines.

Nobody cheered.

The seven benches of the Moon Court stood at the center of the floor, and six of them were empty.

On the seventh sat the eldest, alone, with her hands folded.

"The Court does not attend," she said, in her dry voice, to the whole hall. "The Court notes the coronation and does not approve it."

"The Court may note what it likes," my uncle said pleasantly.

He lifted the narrow gold crown from a cushion, held it above his own head, and set it down.

Catriona stood at his side in a gown of silver, smiling so widely her cheeks must have hurt.

Brogan stood at the other side in a crimson cloak, with a new gold chain across his chest.

"By my right as brother of the late king," Osric announced, "I take the crown of Dunmarrow."

"By my authority, the petition of the traitor Elowen for a Truth Hearing is void."

"The Wolf Moon will be marked by the wedding of my daughter, the Princess Catriona, to the Captain-General."

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