The Cursed Blood novel · Chapter 22 of 32
Chapter 22: The Beta
We carried him up to the big stones at sunrise.
Not to the post. I didn't want him under my mother's roof.
The wardens set him on the frozen ground in the middle of the ring, where the candidates had stood for a month.
They didn't tie him to anything.
They just knelt around him in a circle, palms flat, and the ground hummed.
He could stand. He could walk. He could go nowhere.
By the time the sun cleared the ridge, the ring was full.
Wardens. The east-slope wolves, still black with soot. The kitchen boy with a honey bun in each hand. The candidates who'd fallen off their stones, come back to watch.
Margaux came last.
She stood at the edge of the ring in her ruined white coat and didn't come any closer.
The beta saw her.
He looked away.
The old man sat down on his stool in front of him.
"Delane," he said. "You set fire to the Line."
"I set fire to Mardell timber," the beta said. "On Mardell ground. Below the marker."
"You set it to come up the mountain."
"Wind does what it likes."
The east-slope alpha laughed out loud and leaned on her cane.
"So does a ward," she said. "Ask your trucks."
A ripple of laughter went round the ring.
The beta's jaw went tight.
He turned his head and found me.
I was standing barefoot by the biggest stone, the one I'd stood on twice.
"You," he said. "The kitchen girl with the mouth."
"Warden of Cinder Gap," I said. "As of this week."
"I know what you've got." His voice dropped. "A page out of a book. A dream on a rock. That won't stand up at a council."
"It doesn't have to stand up. You do. At the full moon. In front of every pack."
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