He Signed the Exile Order, So I Took the Wards North novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Signature
At their tenth anniversary feast Corvin announces his fated mate, makes Catriona choose, and signs an exile order without reading it; it carries her name and the wards go dark behind her, and his wolf will not answer.
At our tenth anniversary feast, with envoys from seven territories at the long tables, my husband tapped his cup for silence.
Corvin, the Alpha of our pack, stood at the head of the hall and said he had found his fated mate.
Three hundred people stopped chewing.
He said her name was Rhona, and he held out his hand toward the end of the table.
Rhona stood up in a green dress that did not fit her.
She was the healer's apprentice who had brought me willow tea last spring, when ward-burns blistered my palms.
She did not look at me now.
"I have never touched her," Corvin said, and laid a fist over his heart. "I swear it on this hall."
Then he turned to me.
"Catriona, the old packs shared a bond between two mates. Share mine. Nothing in our pack has to change."
Nothing had to change.
That morning I had laid my palm flat on his chest, the way I did before every council, and he had said, "Steady me, Cat," and kissed my wrist.
Jory Wycliffe, his Beta, stood behind his chair staring at the tablecloth.
Jory had knocked on my door at noon and told me exactly what Corvin planned to say tonight.
So I had spent the afternoon writing.
I stood up slowly, and the hall went so quiet I heard a log shift in the fire.
"You want me to share you," I said.
"I want us all to be safe," Corvin said. "You're the strongest woman I know. You'll understand."
"Then one of us has to prove it," I said. "Choose, Corvin. Her or me."
His jaw moved.
"Catriona, don't make me do this in front of the envoys."
"You chose to do it in front of them."
Somebody in the back row coughed.
I took a folded page out of my sleeve and laid it on the table beside his plate.
"This is an order of exile to the Northern Territories, for a year and a day. I wrote it this afternoon."
He looked at the page, then at Rhona, who had both hands over her mouth.
"If you want her to stay and me to stay," I said, "send her north. Sign it, and I'll share whatever you ask."
Corvin did not hesitate long, barely a single breath.
He took the pen from the envoy of the Concord, whose seal makes any order law.
"Alpha," Jory said quietly. "Read it first."
"Catriona wrote it," Corvin said. "Catriona has written every paper I've signed for ten years."
That was true.
I had drafted every treaty, every tribute roll and every border pact Greyfell owned, and he had signed each one without turning the page.
He signed this one the same way, in a big proud scrawl, and pushed it across to the envoy.
The envoy pressed the Concord's seal into the wax.
Then he read the name on the page, and he read it again.
"Catriona MacNair," he said. "Of Greyfell. Exiled to the Northern Territories by the Alpha's own hand."
Corvin laughed, one short bark.
"That's wrong. Read the line again."
"I have read it twice, Alpha. Your signature is under it, and seven territories watched you write it."
Rhona took a step backward.
"Corvin," she whispered. "Corvin, she's leaving."
His face went white. Then it went red.
"Catriona. Tear it up. Now."
"You asked me to share a bond tonight," I said. "I'd rather share nothing."
I pulled the silver mating cuff off my wrist, the one he had fastened there ten years ago, and dropped it into his wine cup.
It sank without a sound.
I had built this pack with him from a burned cabin and thirty hungry wolves.
I had worn my fingers raw on ward-thread for three winters.
I had sold my mother's wedding comb to pay for our first treaty seal.
Now seven territories paid tribute to Greyfell, and tonight nobody at the head table had said a word about who held its walls.
So I picked up my cloak and walked out of the hall.
Hester Fairbairn was waiting at the door with my travel satchel in her arms.
She was the old ward-keeper who had taught me thread, and she had packed it before I asked.
"Every ward post on the east wall is still singing your name," she said. "Do you want them left?"
"No."
We walked to the gate together, with the whole hall spilling out behind us.
Corvin shouted my name from the steps.
I laid my hand on the ward post by the gate and closed my fingers.
The wall of thread I had woven around Greyfell answered to my hands, not to his signature.
It went dark post by post, all the way around the walls, and the cold came in behind it.
On the ridge, out in the black hills, a hunter's horn blew once.
Behind me, Corvin Sterne called his wolf, and I heard him do it, a rough command in the dark.
Nothing in him answered.
I did not turn around.
I walked north.
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