Out of the Shadow at Last novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Northgate
The Alphas' council balks at an omega at the Moon Fair, and Corbin calls her his labour; Ivar names her under the sponsor right, the vote ties, and Posy is named the Rooke champion.
It took two days on a borrowed horse to reach Northgate.
Ivar rode ahead of me the whole way and asked me exactly one question: whether I was hungry.
I told him no, and he handed me bread anyway.
On the second evening the grey walls of his hall rose out of the snow, and a lean man with a russet beard was waiting at the gate with his arms crossed.
"This is her?" he said to Ivar. "She's smaller than you made her sound."
"Bram, this is Linnet Rooke," Ivar said. "Linnet, my beta. He talks."
"Somebody has to," Bram said. He looked at the chalk on my hands and the apron I had not changed. "You came straight from the ceremony in that? I like you already."
That was all the welcome I had time for.
The council of Alphas was already sitting in the Fair hall.
Eight of them, in a half circle of carved chairs, with the Moon Fair banner hanging on the wall behind them.
A herald stood in the middle with a scroll in his hands.
"The Fair admits one champion for each Alpha," he read. "Barrier mages of Watcher rank, or any mage an Alpha names under the sponsor right. Alpha Halvorsen of Northgate has named a champion. Her name is Linnet Rooke, an omega of the Rooke Pack."
Nobody said anything for the length of a breath.
Then all eight Alphas started talking at once.
"An omega at the Fair?" said the oldest of them, a woman with a white braid and a cane. "In my life I have never seen it."
"There's nothing in the rules that forbids it," Ivar said.
"There's nothing in the rules about it at all," she said. "That is not the same as permission."
The doors at the back of the hall opened.
Father came in with Anders behind him, in his black Alpha's coat and with the Rooke ring on his hand, and he walked straight to the front.
He did not look at me.
"Alpha Rooke," the white-braided woman said. "You have something to say on this."
"I do." Father turned to face the half circle. "That girl is my daughter. She is an omega of my pack, and her labour belongs to my pack. Halvorsen did not ask me before he took her."
"You told her she was no daughter of yours," Ivar said. "In front of four hundred people."
"A father may say a harsh word to a child who humiliates him in public."
"I put your ring down on the dais," I said.
Every head turned.
I had not meant to speak.
"Linnet," Father said, in his flat Alpha's voice. "You are tired. You will come home, and we will say no more."
"I'm not coming home."
"You cannot enter this Fair without a pack," he said. "The rules that your Alpha friend loves so much require a champion to belong to someone. You belong to me."
He was right, and I felt it land.
Ivar stepped forward before I could answer.
"Under the sponsor right, a named champion belongs to her sponsor for the length of the Fair," he said. "It's older than your ring, Rooke. Read the scroll."
The herald unrolled it and read it again.
He nodded, grudgingly.
The oldest Alpha tapped her cane on the floor three times.
"Then we vote," she said. "Does an omega stand at the Moon Fair, yes or no?"
Four hands went up for yes, and I looked at each one of them and did not know their names.
Four hands stayed down.
"Tied," said the herald, sounding relieved to have something simple to announce.
The white-braided Alpha looked at me for a long moment, and I looked back.
"The first trial opens the Fair in two days," she said. "She stands in it. If she holds, she stays in the Fair. If she fails, she goes back to the Rooke Pack and the Fair never speaks of it again."
"Agreed," Father said, too quickly.
"Agreed," said Ivar.
I did not say anything, because nobody had asked me.
Father turned at last and looked straight through me.
"One more thing," he said to the council. "The Rooke Pack also names a champion. I name the Moon Watcher of Ashmere, the one who wears the cloak."
At the back of the hall, a small figure in dark blue wool lifted her head.
Posy stood in the doorway with Mother's hand on her shoulder, and she would not look at me either.
"Posy Rooke," the herald read, and wrote it on the roster below my name.
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