Chapter 8: The Hearing

The rite hall was fuller at dawn than it had been on the night of the betrothal.

The silver lamps were out, and grey light came through the high windows onto four hundred faces.

I walked in alone, up the center aisle, in the one clean dress I had.

Hamish came in behind me and took a seat at the back.

"A neighboring Alpha may witness any hearing that names his guest," he told the warden at the door.

"Old law. Look it up."

The warden did not look it up.

The Alpha sat on the dais in the tall chair, with Tobias on a stool at his right.

Tobias looked ill.

His cheeks had gone hollow in a week, and he held his hands between his knees to hide the shaking.

"Yvaine Halstead," the Alpha said. "You are charged before this pack with breaking a sacred rite."

"I spoke the Release," I said. "That is the rite."

"You spoke it in the middle of a betrothal."

"You asked for it."

A murmur ran through the benches.

"I did nothing of the kind."

"You stood on that dais and asked the Halstead daughters whether one of us would take the mark," I said.

"Everyone here heard you."

I turned and spoke to the hall.

"Did he say it or not?"

Nobody answered at first.

Then the baker, who had raised my price to four coppers, spoke from the third row.

"He said it," she said in a small voice.

"He did," said the man next to her.

"I heard it," said somebody else.

The Alpha's jaw tightened.

"The question was put to spare the pack a scandal."

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