Chapter 5: White Roses

Tobias came to the border on the fourth day, in a cart, with flowers.

I was splitting kindling behind the cabin when the Ashfall bell rang at the ridge gate.

The whole pack gathered there for stew on the first day of the week.

That morning forty or so of them stood around the long tables with their bowls.

I walked down through the trees with the axe still in my hand.

Tobias stood on the Cedarvale side of the border stones in his best coat.

He had shaved and combed his hair, and he held white roses against his chest.

Hamish was already at the stones, with his arms folded.

"No farther," Hamish said.

"I'm not asking to cross, Alpha Rathbone," Tobias said pleasantly. "I only want a word with my betrothed."

"Which one?"

A ripple of laughter ran along the tables.

Tobias's smile held. "Yvaine. We were interrupted at the rite. There was a misunderstanding."

I stopped at the edge of the stones, so that he had to look at me.

The whole Ashfall pack watched him do it.

"What was the misunderstanding?" I asked.

"You were tired. Melisande was ill. Everyone was upset."

"And what did you say to me in the robing room?"

He hesitated.

"That I'd marry you," he said. "That nothing would change."

"Say it louder, so the people at the tables can hear."

"Yvaine, please."

"Say it."

He raised his voice a little, because he was trying to be gracious and it made him stupid.

"I told you it was you I was marrying!"

"A week before the rite," I said, "I walked to the herb shed behind your house.

"I had a basket of comfrey for my sister's chest."

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