One Hundred Days

The council chamber smells like polished wood and old smoke. Alpha Greaves sits at the center of the long table with six elders on either side. Behind them stands a row of warriors with their hands folded.

Killian is already there. His lip is cut where I bit him. He's calm and clean, and he's wearing a fresh shirt.

Sabrina sits at the end of the table with her hair neatly braided, fanning herself.

"Elysia Belrose," Alpha Greaves says. "You've been accused of a serious offence."

I blink. "Accused?"

"Killian reports," says an elder, "that you approached him tonight with improper intentions. That you attempted to seduce him, and when he refused, you attacked him."

I laugh. It's a horrible, cracked sound. "That's not what happened."

"He has witnesses," Greaves says.

"He has *one*."

I turn. Sabrina meets my eyes and lifts one shoulder, perfect and untroubled.

"I saw the whole thing," she says sweetly. "It was awful. She flew at him like an animal. I was just passing by, and I was so frightened."

"You were in the *room*!"

"Silence," Greaves snaps.

"She was in the storeroom with him! She was wearing a robe, they were—" I turn to the elders. "Ask the guards. Ask anyone. I walked in on them. I rejected the bond and he hit me. Look at my face!"

Nobody looks at my face.

Alpha Greaves folds his hands. "The king's daughter has made her statement."

"That's not an investigation. That's—"

"I will not offend the Princess of the realm on the word of a servant." His voice is flat. He glances at Sabrina, then at the door, as though the king might be standing behind it. "Not with the delegation under our roof. Silvercrest has ambitions. We cannot afford a scandal."

There it is.

I look around the room. Elders examine their fingernails. Warriors stare at the far wall. Not one of them meets my gaze.

"This council finds Elysia Belrose guilty of assault and slander," Greaves says. "She is sentenced to one hundred days of exile in the Wildlands. No supplies. No escort. No appeal."

"Please." It comes out as barely a whisper. "I haven't had a trial."

"This is your trial."

"My mother's grave—I haven't said goodbye—"

"*Take her.*"

The doors burst open and Mira rushes in, her curls wild, her cheeks streaked with tears.

"You can't do this!" she screams. "She didn't do anything! Killian is lying, you all know he's lying, she's the best person in this whole pack—"

Two guards catch her around the waist. She kicks and thrashes. Her heel connects with a knee and someone swears, and a small, wild part of me wants to laugh.

"Mira," I say. "It's okay."

"It is *not okay*!"

"Mira."

She goes still. Her eyes find mine, red-rimmed and desperate.

"I'll come back," I tell her. "I promise."

Then I look at Killian. I look for it, for any trace of the man I thought I knew. A flicker of guilt. A single word. Anything.

He picks a piece of lint off his sleeve and turns his back.

***

They take me out through the east gate. It's the long way, the way criminals go.

The night is cold and cloudless. The moon hangs low and enormous over the trees, round and white. My boots drag in the dirt. Blood has dried stiff on my chin. The guards' hands are tight on my arms.

Halfway to the boundary, the warmth in my chest returns.

It doesn't glow this time. It *burns*. A sharp, stabbing pulse sears behind my breastbone, once, twice, in time with my heartbeat. I gasp.

"Quiet," the guard growls.

The moonlight sharpens. Every blade of grass in the clearing stands out in clear silver lines. I can see the moths dancing around the lantern poles, the grain in the wooden gate ahead, the pores on the guard's nose. I've never seen anything so clearly in my life.

It must be fear, I tell myself. Fear does strange things.

The gates of Silvercrest loom up out of the dark. They creak open, a narrow gap in the great timber wall, and beyond them there's nothing but forest.

The guards shove me through.

I stumble and catch myself on my hands. Gravel bites into my palms.

"One hundred days," the older guard says. He stands in the gateway, backlit by torchlight, his face hard. "If you come back before then, we kill you. No questions. No second chances."

"I understand."

"Good."

The gate groans shut. The bolt slides home with a heavy, final thunk.

I stay on my knees for a long moment, staring at the wood. I can hear Mira shouting somewhere far behind it, her voice thin and ragged. Then even that fades.

I'm alone in the dark with the clothes on my back, a little bag thanks to Mira, a split lip and a hole in my chest where a bond used to be.

I climb to my feet.

The forest ahead is black and endless. A cold wind rolls through the trees. Somewhere beyond the first ridge, long and low and hungry, something howls.

And it's close enough that I can hear it breathing between the notes.