Chapter 16: The Lawn

The Regent's brother reached Cassian first.

He came across the grass with his sword high.

Cassian stood with his hands open at his sides and did not draw.

"You have no steel, boy," the gray lord said. "Kneel."

"No," said Cassian.

The sword came down.

I screamed his name.

He moved, and the blade hit the dirt where his shoulder had been, and then he changed.

It started under his skin.

His back bent, and his shirt split from the collar to the belt, and I heard the bones in his spine go.

Black fur ran up his arms and over his neck in the time it takes to blink.

He dropped to all fours on the lawn, and he was the wolf from my barn.

He was huge and black, with his shoulders level with the gray lord's chest.

The gray lord took one step back.

Cassian opened his jaws and roared.

I had never heard a sound like it.

Every window on the Pruett house rattled.

The ladies on the grass shrieked, and half the lords stumbled backward.

"Kill it!" the Regent shouted from the steps. "He's a beast, he's no prince, kill him!"

Four lords drew at once.

They came across the lawn in a line, and the wolf met them in the middle.

I saw a coat tear, and a boot leave the ground, and a man go down hard on his back.

I saw a blade flash and the wolf's shoulder open red.

"Cassian!"

"Linnet, get down!" Mom hauled me against the porch rail.

She put the shotgun to her shoulder and fired over the heads of the court.

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