The Alpha's Debt the King's Claim novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Sentence

I went down to her cell alone, and Evander let me.

He stood at the head of the stair with two guards, close enough to hear and far enough to give me the door.

Elspeth sat on the bare cot in her grey gown with her knees drawn up.

The iron was back on her wrists.

Her hair hung loose and tangled, and she looked up and smiled.

"You came," she said.

"You said the cradle."

"I did."

"Say it."

"You carved it in the last month," Elspeth said. "Pale ash, with a wolf's head on the rail. You hid it under the stairs in the healer's house, because you didn't want Torin to see it before it was finished."

My mouth went dry.

"Torin found it anyway. I told him to put it on the fire. He did it that same night, in front of me, and I stood in the doorway and watched every board go."

I held on to the bars.

I did not make a sound.

"There," Elspeth said softly. "I wanted you to know before I went. I wanted to see your face."

I looked at her for a long time.

She was waiting for me to cry.

"Torin doesn't remember it," I said.

"No."

"He'll never know what he did. You'll be the one who hangs for it. He'll live knowing nothing, and only I will remember it."

Her smile began to slip.

"That's what you did to yourself," I said. "You chose the one person who couldn't remember to be your whole reason."

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