Chapter 14: Rhea Runs

"Dorian!" Rhea screamed.

He didn't turn his head.

Kellan raised two fingers, and a warrior ran for the forge at the end of the yard.

"The iron needs to be hot," Kellan said to me quietly. "It will take a few minutes."

I nodded.

I should have stayed.

My arms ached for my daughter, and the milk had come in hard against my shirt, and Lyra had not been in my arms since dawn.

"Ten minutes," I told Kellan. "I'll feed her and come back."

I walked toward the longhouse.

Behind me, rope parted with a dry snap.

I turned.

Rhea had been rubbing her bonds against the iron strap of the gate for the whole of the confession, and no one had watched her hands.

She went through the two Ashfall guards.

One flew back into the post.

The other grabbed her coat and was left holding the empty sleeve, because she had already begun to shift.

Red-gold fur broke across her shoulders.

She hit the ground on four legs and ran.

Not for the gate and the road, where three hundred wolves stood.

She ran into the yard, toward the longhouse and the cellar below it.

I understood in the same instant that she did.

I had said it out loud at noon, to Kellan, in front of her.

The baby's in the cellar with Hester.

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