Chapter 24: Moon Queen

I walked into the Claiming Hall at noon, down the same long aisle I had walked out of.

Four hundred Iron Moon wolves stood on either side.

Sixty Silverfen wolves stood among them, and the freed rogues stood at the back, with their sleeves rolled up and their bare wrists showing.

Nobody laughed.

Nobody whispered.

The old circlet sat on my head, light and cool.

Wystan walked at my right with his cane, and Fenn walked at my left, wearing a clean shirt for the first time since I had known him.

Joran walked three steps behind me, alone, in a plain black shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

He wore no rank.

He wore the silver token on its cord, and I had not yet decided what to do with it.

I climbed the steps of the dais.

It was the same dais.

Four weeks ago, I had set a silver disc on its edge and said I would be gone by morning.

I turned and looked out at all of them.

The hum started under the floor at once.

The Moon Stone was waking for me.

"Ilse Penhallow," the white-bearded wolf said, and his voice carried to the rafters. "The pack has a seat, and no one to fill it."

"I know."

"The Alpha swore it away."

"I was there."

"Will you take it, Moon Queen?"

The hall waited.

I thought about the girl on the cot in the back room who slept ten hours a night.

I thought about the girl at the table who let a friend carry her heart away in her pocket.

"I'll take the chair," I said. "I'll sit in it. I won't be fed by it."

I looked at the old man.

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