Chapter 20: Sentence

For a breath nobody in the great hall moved.

Then four hundred wolves began to growl, low and all together.

Odessa stood in the aisle with her ruined hands held out in front of her.

She looked at them.

"I didn't mean," she said. "I didn't say it."

"You said it," said the Alpha of Highcross.

"You all heard," said the Alpha of Stonefall.

The Alpha of Dunmere said nothing.

He took a step back from her, and so did the wolves beside him.

I had waited a long time to see people step away from her.

It felt like nothing.

It felt like watching a candle go out in a room I was leaving.

"Lady Odessa Marwood," said Lucan.

He had not raised his voice.

He never did.

He came down off the dais and stood in front of her, a head taller, and she lifted her chin.

"You put wolfsbane in a child's cup and let a girl be chained for it."

"She was nothing," said Odessa.

"She was the girl who saved my life."

"She was a kitchen maid with a mother's tune! I was the one who stood in the hall!"

"Yes," said Lucan. "You stood in the hall."

He turned to the packs.

"The law of Hartmoor is twenty lashes of silver chain for a hand raised against the heir."

"The first is laid by the heir's kin. That is myself."

A breath went through the hall.

"I have laid one chain already in my life that I should not have," he said. "I will not lay a second."

He looked at me.

"The one she wronged will name the price."

I had not known he would do that.

I stepped forward.

My legs were not quite steady, and I put my hand on the back of the nearest bench.

Odessa's eyes found mine.

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