Chapter 8: The Convoy

Ivar's POV

The oldest Alpha called me into the side room behind the trial field and shut the door on the noise.

Rooke was already there, standing at the window with his hands behind his back.

"Say it," she told him. "Whatever you meant by that outside."

"I meant what I said." Rooke did not turn. "Ask him."

She looked at me.

She was eighty years old and had known my father forty of them, and I could not lie to her face.

"Seven years ago my parents rode south under a peace flag," I said.

"They were taking a treaty to the Rooke Tower."

"Thirty wolves in the convoy," she said. "I remember."

"They crossed the Rooke border at dusk on Hollow Night."

"And?"

"The wards were down," I said.

I made myself say the rest.

"The Dusk Court came over the river and killed all of them, my mother and father too. I buried what was left."

Nobody said anything.

"I have never forgotten the date," I said. "I never will."

"No one asks you to," the old Alpha said, gently.

"I do," said Rooke, and now he turned.

"The wards were down, Halvorsen," he said. "Wards do not fall by themselves."

"They fall when the one who holds them lets go," I said.

"Yes." His eyes were very steady. "And who holds them?"

I did not answer.

"She does," Rooke said. "The girl you've taken into your east wing."

"You've fed her and put your hand on her back in front of the whole Fair," he said.

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