The Silver Wolf novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Same Altar

Calla's POV

I walked up to the Altar with Cormick's hand in mine and stopped at the edge of the stone.

It was the same stone.

The same cold grey slab I had stood on barefoot.

Edric looked down at me.

He had a smile ready, warm and sorry, and I watched him put it on.

"Pack of Cedar Fork," he said. "As I was saying. Calla Braemar has returned to us."

Nobody answered.

"She was cast out under pack law, a wolfless girl who could not be a Luna. I did not wish it. I will not pretend I did."

His eyes slid over the crowd.

"She has since been taken in by a rogue. A man who calls himself the Guard, who is no one's Warden and no one's friend."

"Alpha," someone said, low.

"I mean to be kind," Edric said. "She is still wolfless. She has no standing in this ring. If she will kneel and be sent back down the mountain, I'll let her go in peace."

He turned to me.

"Calla. For the last time."

"Wolfless," I said.

"You have no wolf."

"Say it again."

"You are wolfless, Calla Braemar, under pack law."

"Louder," I said. "So they can hear."

He stared at me.

Then he raised his voice, and it carried across the clearing, warm and cold at once.

"You are wolfless!"

I let go of Cormick's hand.

I climbed the Altar's three stone steps and walked out into the middle of it.

I stood where I had stood at twenty.

I could see all two hundred faces in the torchlight, and every one was waiting.

"Before I answer him," I said, "I want to ask the pack something."

Nobody moved.

"Seven years ago, at the winter rite, my mother drank from the Alpha's cup. She was dead in nine days. He told you it was a fever."

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