Severed Ties: Rise of the Silver Wolf novel · Chapter 10 of 48

Chapter 10: Why

Thea's POV

Brigid's croft sat at the end of a dirt track by Lost River, two hours north of the Keep, with smoke coming out of a crooked chimney.

Ewan drove. I sat with my knees pulled up and watched the pines go by.

Neither of us had slept.

He hadn't said anything about the night before, and I was grateful.

My mother was in a Strathmore cell with a guard on the door. My father was in the guest wing with a bruised chest and a lot to think about.

My sister had asked to go home, and I had said no, and she had cried.

I was tired of crying. I wanted answers.

Brigid opened the door before we reached it.

She had a kettle on and a pie on the table, and she had clearly been expecting us.

"Sit," she said. "Both of you. Not on the cat."

The cat was enormous and grey, and it glared at Ewan as he took the other chair.

Brigid poured the tea.

I stared into mine.

"It's only nettle," she said. "I'd never. Drink."

I drank. It tasted of grass.

"Why did she do it?" I asked.

Brigid put her hands around her own cup.

"You were a week old," she said. "Judith was twenty-eight, with two babies and a husband who couldn't say boo to a goose. She brought you both to me for your naming night, and she held you up to the fire for the blessing, and I saw it."

"Saw what?"

"Your eyes. When the flame caught them, they went silver."

Ewan had gone still beside me.

"Silver wolves wake once in two generations," Brigid said. "The Council wants them. It always has. By the Old Writ, a silver wolf belongs to the Council from the day she shifts. They put her in the Hold in the mountain. No mate. No pack. No say. She goes where she's told and fights what she's pointed at."

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