Chapter 22: The Line Holds

We reached the border at dusk, in a Command truck with the windows down and the smoke already in our teeth.

Three ward posts stood along the ridge, tall iron lamps that kept the line between the kingdom and the wild lands bright all night.

Two were burning.

The third was still lit, barely, and a ring of men in dark coats stood around it with axes.

"Thirty," Teague said, with the binoculars at his eyes. "Maybe thirty-five. And one very tired Border Marshal on his back under that post."

"Alive?" Hollis said.

"Swearing. So yes."

I pulled the truck door shut and checked my boots.

My hands were calm, which surprised me.

"Linnea." Hollis turned in his seat. "This is your first line fight. You don't have to lead it."

"I'm not leading it."

"Good."

"I'm winning it."

Teague made a small strangled noise and pretended it was a cough.

We came down off the ridge on foot, in the last light.

The raiders heard us and turned, a ragged line of axes and grins.

"Royal Command," one of them called. "Look at that. Two men and a girl in a mechanic's jacket."

"Three," Hollis said pleasantly. "You forgot the one who's going to break your line."

"Which one is that?"

I stepped forward past Hollis and took off my jacket.

The raiders laughed.

I gave my wolf the lead, all of it, no tonic and no circle and no mother's hand on my shoulder, and I let it come up through my chest.

The change took me whole.

I stood on four paws on the ridge, white and enormous, with silver along my spine, and I put my head back and howled.

The sound rolled down the hill.

All three ward posts blazed up at once, the burning ones too, white fire running along their iron, and the dusk went bright.

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