Chapter 17: The King's Test

The Lycan throne hall was fuller than the day Cade challenged Soren.

Both courts were there.

The Lycan benches were packed to the walls.

Along the left side stood a row of Crescent Moon elders who had ridden through the night to witness.

Joss was among them, with the Alpha's ring on his hand.

At the far end, the Lycan King sat on his plain iron chair.

Beside it, set a little lower, stood a second chair of pale wood.

It was empty.

I walked up the aisle with Soren half a step behind me.

"You don't have to answer anything he asks," Soren said, low.

"I know."

"I mean it. Say no to him, Rhiannon. Say it to his face."

"I intend to say whatever I like to his face," I said.

I stopped at the foot of the dais and did not bow.

The King looked down at me for a long time with his son's grey eyes.

"You have her walk," he said at last. "My younger sister's walk. She went out of this hall the same way."

"My mother never told me she was a princess."

"No," he said. "She wouldn't have."

He rose from the iron chair and came down two steps, until he stood level with me.

He was an old man, and he was very tired.

"I have a question for you, daughter of my sister," he said. "Before both courts."

"Ask it."

"My sister ran from this hall rather than be a queen. Why should her daughter sit in it?"

The hall waited.

I thought of my mother, who had run.

I thought of five years spent keeping accounts for a man who took my strength to feed his own.

"I shouldn't," I said. "Not because I'm owed it, and not because I carry her blood."

"Then why would you?"

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