Chapter 6

I lay in the healing room for five days. The healer said I could move around but not strain myself. When I pushed up off the bedrail my legs went soft, and I had to hold the wall a moment before it passed.

Passing the servants' side room, I heard voices inside. “That girl really is blessed. The Alpha cleared out a whole side hall for her, brought a healer down from the South to watch her day and night. I heard that healer only treats old wounds. Ordinary wolves can't get him to come at all.”

“You said it. The night her old wound flared, the Alpha went white in the face and carried her back from the feast himself. I saw it with my own eyes. His hands were shaking the whole time.”

“When has our Alpha ever fussed over anyone like that?”

The Moon Goddess grounds were open flat land, a Moon Goddess stele standing dead center, fire-basins burning at the four corners. Most of Iron Claw's pack rites happen here.

Tonight the grounds were crowded. The offering moon-feast had already begun. Every basin was lit, the firelight turning the whole field bright as day. Wolves from various packs had gathered, standing in twos and threes, talking. Some wore cloaks marked with clan crests, some had bone necklaces of rank across their chests.

Cain walked down from the high platform to Seraphine, took her hand, and led her up onto it.

I stood in the dark at the edge of the grounds and watched them climb, step by step. The firelight stretched their shadows long, overlapping, like two beasts leaning into each other.

He settled her in the center of the platform. That spot, facing the Moon Goddess stele, facing the whole pack, was the Luna's place. Cain lifted his head, his throat working, and a long howl tore out of his chest. The sound was desolate and drawn out, like the wind that comes down from the North in winter. The pack answered. Seraphine stood at his side and keened along. Her voice was small and soft, mostly swallowed by the pack's howls.

I bit down hard.

Right then a line of servant-wolves came in through the side door carrying a large wooden chest toward the Moon Goddess grounds. It was heavy; four wolves carrying it still swayed. The lid was open, showing folded brocade and hide scrolls, and pressed on top of it all was one thing.

A pendant. A moontear pendant. The heirloom passed down through Silver Mane's Lunas. My mother's only keepsake.

How was it here, in the courtyard of the Iron Claw stronghold, being carried up to the Moon Goddess grounds as a gift?

“This came down from a Silver Mane Luna,” she said, her voice soft, like a marvel she was musing aloud. “So pretty.”

“Put it down.”

My voice wasn't loud. But on the silent grounds, everyone heard it.

Seraphine's hand stopped midair. She turned and looked at me.

I walked over, pushed past the servant standing by the offering table, and reached for the pendant. The moment my fingers touched the silver chain, she pulled her hand back.

“Elara,” she said, with just the right amount of surprise. “I thought you weren't well, resting in the side wing.”

“This is a Silver Mane Luna's heirloom,” I said, turning to Cain. “It's my mother's keepsake. I ask the Iron Claw Alpha to rule it back to me.”

Seraphine lowered her head, voice soft, threaded with a small laugh. “Elara, this is a gift I received. Grabbing my things like this, isn't that a bit much?”

“A gift?” I held the pendant up to the firelight. “This is my mother's. What gives you the right to use it as a gift?”

“Silver Mane offered it,” Seraphine said, her tone still gentle, every word a honey-dipped blade. “That was your father's decision.”

I looked at Cain.

“Cain,” I called his name. “Rule it back to me.”

“Cain.” My lips were trembling. “That was my mother's.”

“I have nothing left,” I said, my voice gone so hoarse I barely knew it. “No pack, no mother, no home. This is all that's left.”

“Please.”

I, Elara Hale, the proudest little princess Silver Mane had, said please.

Cain's pupils contracted. His fingers loosened on the edge of the table, his body leaning slightly forward. “Since it's your mother's keepsake…”

Seraphine arched a brow. “Cain, that pendant is a fake.”

“Elara, you'd really make up a lie like this just to ruin my ceremony? And use your dead mother to do it? I thought you'd have grown out of being this vicious.”

I roared. “There's a faint dark mark on the chain's clasp. It's the wear my mother left after years of wearing it. How could I mistake my own mother's keepsake?”

Before anyone could react, she stepped to the silver-melting offering furnace and dropped the pendant straight into it.

“No—”

I threw myself forward. My knees cracked against the furnace rim, the pain shooting up numb, but I didn't care. The silver fire's heat blasted my face, pulling my skin tight. I reached in.

I would get it back.

Even if the silver fire burned my flesh to ash, I would get it back.

My fingers hit scalding silver ash, and the skin seared white with a hiss. I screamed but didn't pull back. I reached in again. Twice. Three times.

Silver ash caked my fingers, the backs of my hands, my wrists. My left hand, from fingertip to wrist, was curled flesh, char and raw red, the edges of my nails seared yellow and warped. Someone behind me was pulling at me. I threw the hand off. Anyone who touched me, I threw off.

But I came up with nothing. The moontear had already melted, gone to smoke, and all that was left in the furnace was silver ash.

Seraphine stood behind me. She tilted her head, close to my ear, her voice low, like a snake gliding through grass.

“Hurts, doesn't it, you little bitch. You deserve to burn yourself like this.” Every word was perfectly clear. “Your mother too. She deserved to go off that cliff and die.”

I reached back, gripped the silver knife at my waist, and drove the point through the back of her right hand, through flesh, pinning it to the wooden offering table.

A sharp clack.

Her hand was nailed to the table, the blade's tip jutting out the back, blood on the edge. Her face went white in an instant, eyes blown wide, mouth open, and out came a shrill, dignity-shredding scream.

Blood spread from the back of her hand, running down across the table, dripping onto the stone. One drop, then another.

The whole grounds went still. No one spoke, no one moved. Even the fire in the basins seemed frozen.

Wolves rushed in, shrieking for the healer. Guests stood, some backing away, some pushing forward, the servants a tangle of panic.

I saw Cain rise from the head seat. I couldn't read his face; the firelight caught one side of it and cut the other into shadow. He came toward me and stopped in front of me.

He looked down at the silver knife nailing Seraphine's right hand to the table, then at my hand. His gaze moved from my hand to my face.

“Elara,” he said, very quietly.

“She insulted my mother,” I said, looking at him. “She melted my mother's keepsake. So I stabbed her.”

“It was just an object, and you nearly took her hand off with a knife,” he said.

“You should be grateful I've gotten so much gentler. Otherwise that knife would've taken her head.” I lifted my red-rimmed eyes to him. Fury and grief and pain twisted in me, and my heart felt like a claw had closed around it, wringing it over and over. I'd stopped feeling the burns on my body. They were nothing next to the pain inside.

Cain stood there with his back to me, the hem of his hunting cloak stirring in the night wind.

“I'll have the healer treat your burns,” he said. “Once you're healed, go back to Silver Mane and reflect. This place isn't right for you anymore.”