The Luna He Failed to Protect novel · Chapter 26 of 32

Chapter 26: Her Ruling

I didn't answer him on the drive.

A Luna doesn't rule on a gravel road.

"Tomorrow," I said. "Sundown. The round hall. Anybody who wants to can come and listen."

Everybody wanted to.

By sundown the benches were full again, and there were wolves sitting on the steps outside the open doors.

The moon was a night past full.

Its light came through the hole in the roof thinner than before, a little off the stone.

I sat in the Luna's chair.

Cale stood on the floor below me with his hands at his sides.

He didn't sit in his father's chair.

He hadn't once.

"The Alpha asks if hearth law binds him," I said to the hall. "And me."

Somebody on the benches whistled low.

Edda kicked him without looking.

"Before I answer, I'm going to say the part you're all thinking," I said. "I'm the other half of the question. That's not a fair seat to rule from."

The elder nodded slowly from beside the moon stone.

"So I won't rule on us," I said. "I'll rule on the law. You can all watch me do it. If I get it wrong, say so."

I turned to the elder.

"Read it off the stones. The real words. Not the custom."

The elder took his candle to the old stones in the wall behind the dais.

He had to bend close.

The letters were worn almost flat.

"Two wolves born of one hearth," he read, "shall not mate, nor lie together, nor ask it."

He straightened.

"That's all of it," he said.

"Born," I said.

"Born," said the elder.

"Not raised. Not fostered. Not taken in at nine because a dying sergeant asked."

"It doesn't say raised." He lowered the candle. "Somebody in my grandfather's time started saying raised. Nobody ever went down here to check."

A murmur went around the benches.

I thought of the twins, taken in as pups.

I thought of Edda, fostered in at sixteen.

I thought of every wolf in that valley who'd grown up at somebody else's table.

"Then here's my ruling," I said. "Hearth law binds wolves born kin. It binds nobody else. Any wolf punished for hearth-shame who wasn't born kin has that punishment struck from the roll tonight."

I looked down at Cale.

"That's the law," I said. "It isn't an answer about you and me. That question's mine, and I'll answer it myself."

The hall was quiet.

"Does anybody say I got it wrong?" I asked.

Nobody did.

The elder struck the stone once with his stick.

"Ruled," he said.

The cook, at the back, said, "Motion carries," and half the hall laughed, and I couldn't keep my face straight.

We walked home along the river in the dark.

The squad was being very strange.

The brothers weren't arguing.

The twins kept looking at each other.

The youngest was holding her hand over her mouth.

When we got to the Vardy gate, Edda clapped her hands once.

"Right," she said. "Night shift at the mill. Everybody."

"The mill's a shell," I said. "It hasn't got a roof."

"Exactly. Lots to do. Very urgent." She was already herding them up the river road. "We'll be back about noon. Maybe later. The axle's very complicated."

"Edda."

"Night, Luna."

The cook went past me carrying the new pot.

He didn't say anything.

He winked.

The cook had never winked in his life.

Then they were gone up the road in the dark, and the youngest was laughing so hard I could hear her for a quarter mile.

The house behind me was empty.

Cale's truck was parked outside the fence where it always was.

He was sitting on the tailgate.

He'd heard every word.

He was trying very hard to look at the river.

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