Chapter 19: The Challenge

The old way meant a circle of bare earth behind the lodge, ringed by the whole pack standing shoulder to shoulder.

Someone had scratched the line with a stick, and it was not quite round.

Braden stood at the north edge of it in his trousers, rolling his neck.

He was a big man, and he knew how to use being looked at.

I stood at the south edge and took off my sweater and my boots.

Then I took off my father's ring and put it in Eliza's palm.

"If I don't get up," I said.

"You will."

"If I don't, you take the seat."

Eliza closed her fingers around the ring and her mouth went tight.

"Then get up," she said.

Alexander stood behind her with his arm in the sling.

He had not argued with me once.

He had only said, "I'll be right here," and I had said, "I know," and that had been the whole conversation.

The oldest elder lifted his staff.

"By the old way," he said. "Tooth and claw. No weapons, no poison, no help. It ends when one yields or cannot rise. Begin."

I let my wolf come.

It was nothing like the night at the stones.

That night she had run me north, and I had been a passenger.

Now I opened a door and she walked through it, gold-white and long-legged, and the world went sharp and loud.

I could hear every breath in the ring.

Across the circle, Braden went down on all fours.

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