The Alpha Hunts the Exiles, So I Let Him Catch Me novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: The Night at the Stone
Unai's POV
The eldest of the eleven houses told me at the end of the Batzar that my bell would hang on the stone.
It would hang there until the houses said otherwise.
"Not tonight," he said, and leaned on his stick. "Maybe not this winter."
"I understand."
"You don't yet, boy. You will. Keep the watch."
So on the third night after the Batzar I walked up through the snow to the border stone.
I sat down with my back against it, and did not go home.
It was a hard frost.
The bell hung above my head on its iron staple, and when the wind came it swung and made a small sound.
I wore my coat and my beret and nothing to warm the hands.
I watched the cold stars turn over the pass.
Sometime after the moon rose, I heard small boots crunching on the Roncal side.
A girl of seven came out of the trees in a man's jacket with the sleeves rolled four times.
She stopped a long way off and looked at me.
"You're the one who burned the hut," she said.
"Yes."
"Txomin gave me a goat."
"I know," I said. "I'm sorry."
"Is it a real sorry?"
"I don't know how to make it more real. I'm sitting in the snow."
She considered this.
"Are you going to do it again?" she asked.
"No."
"Promise."
"I promise," I said. "I'll count it for you, if you like."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I'll remember it every night."
She thought about it a long time, and then she went away.
An hour later she came back with a boy of ten and a piece of bread.
They sat in the snow six feet from me and ate it without offering me any.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Alpha Hunts the Exiles, So I Let Him Catch Me are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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