Chapter 22: The Glove

The pack came out of their cabins in silence and formed a ring around the field.

Hester came running with her glasses bouncing on their cord.

The old man with the cane came behind her, as slowly as ever.

Kellan moved to put himself in front of me, and I took hold of his arm and moved him aside.

"No," I said. "Let me."

"Brigid, you can barely stand."

"I can stand long enough."

I stepped out into the open grass, in a blanket, with a red cord on my wrist.

The man in the black glove smiled at me.

"The white wolf," he said. "You look a good deal better than I'd hoped."

"You said I broke the rope."

"You did. Forty witnesses saw it."

"Under the compact, a pack member who enters an Alpha's ring forfeits the seat."

I said it slowly, because every child in the valley is taught the third clause.

"Exactly."

"I am not a pack member."

His smile held for one more breath.

"I was cast out fifteen years ago," I said. "I was never restored."

"I refused Kellan's pardon in front of the guards. On the day of the ring, I was a rogue with no pack and no oath."

I turned to the old man with the cane.

"Marshal. Is there a clause for a rogue who breaks a rope?"

He cleared his throat.

"The compact binds pack members," he said. "It says nothing of those without one. She is no one's, and she is nobody's second."

A low noise came from the ring of wolves.

The lean man's eyes narrowed.

"A technicality," he said.

"Yes. The same kind you used when you put dust in your glove."

Silence.

It spread through the field until I could hear the grass moving.

"I don't know what you mean," he said.

"Shake my hand."

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