Reborn Luna Hears Every Lie novel · Chapter 20 of 40

Chapter 20: The Place He Takes

Kael came through the sanctuary gallery with his coat still on, and the first thing he did was take the witness oath out of Lirien's hand. He did not look at her when he did it. He crossed the room to the council bench and set the page in front of Eln, who had come up from the panel with two of her members behind her.

'This is the Alpha's name on a false oath,' Kael said. 'Log it as withdrawn.'

Eln looked at the wax. She looked at Lirien, who had not moved from the table, her fingers still curled where the page had been. Then she took her slate token off her collar and pressed it flat over the seal, the way a clerk voids a document.

'Logged,' she said. 'Withdrawn at the Alpha's word.'

Lirien's voice came out soft. 'Kael. You don't understand what you're doing.'

'No,' he said. 'For once I do.'

Sera stood at the foot of Maren's bed with the seal in her closed hand and watched him do it. She had read the room before he walked in. The two neutral guards by the corridor door had already decided this was a pack matter and were waiting to see which way the Alpha turned. The scribe had his pen down and his eyes up. The healers had stopped pretending to work.

They all wanted the same thing from Kael, and none of them would say it out loud: they wanted him to choose, in front of them, so the record would have it.

He turned to Sera.

'I'm not asking for the seal,' he said. 'It's yours. I said that in front of Maren and I'll say it in front of this room.'

'Then what are you asking for?'

'To stand where you are,' he said. 'That's all.'

Sera let the silence sit. She could hear him, under the words, the way she heard everyone now. He was not thinking about the seal. He was thinking about the door she had closed on him at the refuge, and about whether she would close it again, and he had already decided he would stand in this room whether she opened it or not.

That was the part she filed. Not the words. The fact that he had come to give something away and had not brought a request with it.

'You can stand there,' she said.

Lirien made a small sound. It was meant to be a laugh. It came out wrong.

'You're going to let him do this,' she said, to the room now, to the guards, to Eln. 'He's the Alpha. He can't just hand the Luna's office to a woman who was rejected in front of the whole pack and call it law.'

Kael turned around. He did it slowly, and when he spoke he did not raise his voice, and every person in the gallery leaned toward him to hear it anyway.

'I am not handing anyone the Luna's office,' he said. 'I don't have it to hand. The office comes from the elders and the founding line, and the founding line is sitting in that bed. What I have is my own authority, and I'm putting it behind her custody of that seal. That's what I'm giving. That's all I'm giving.'

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