The End of Us novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Blood Challenge

By noon, every pack on the river stood in the Hall's lower field.

Three hundred wolves ringed a circle of trampled grass.

The Moon Council's elders sat on a bench at the north edge, in grey cloaks, with the white-haired clerk among them.

Maud stood alone in the middle of the ring.

She had changed into a plain dark tunic, and the heavy iron ring was back on her right hand.

She had not been to any jeweler.

"Isla Sheridan," she called across the grass. "You were Luna of this pack, and you left the Hall on Founders' Night. The seat has stood empty since."

"I know what it's done," I said.

"By the old rite, any wolf of this pack may claim an empty seat by blood. I claim it."

A rustle went through the crowd.

"You can't claim it," Ginny shouted from the back, with her cast in the air. "You murdered the man it belonged to!"

"Silence that girl," Maud said.

Nobody moved.

"Maud," the white-haired elder said heavily. "The challenge is legal. The challenged may answer or yield."

I looked at Keith.

He stood at the rope with his arms folded, and his knuckles were white.

"You've never shifted," he said under his breath. "Not once. If you go in there as you are, she will break you."

"I know."

"Then yield. Let me put my name to this. We'll bring the Council to her door."

"If I yield, she holds the seat. She holds the stone. She holds everything."

"Isla."

"I'll answer," I said.

I took off my coat and handed it to Ginny.

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