LOGINChapter 16: The Stepmother ArrivesI didn’t ask him about the letters.I meant to. The morning after I found the K, I went looking for him, with the twelfth letter folded in my sleeve. The study was empty. His bed was made. Liora told me the Council had called an emergency session on the Moonborn matter, and the Alpha had been in the Hall of Stones since dawn. He stayed there three days. When he came back, he came back at midnight, and I was waiting in the chair by the fire with the letter in my hand.He crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed to take off his boots. He bent. He didn’t straighten up. His hand dropped away from the laces, and his head went down against the post, and he was asleep sitting up.I stood over him for a while. I took the letter back to the drawer. I took off his boots myself, lifted his legs onto the bed, and pulled the blanket over him.He slept eleven hours. It was the longest I’d ever seen.The next day was market day, and the next there was a bord
Chapter 15: Eleven LettersKael didn’t throw the towel at him. I want to say that first, because I thought he would.He held it out to me over his shoulder without turning around. His body stayed between the tub and the door. His hand was perfectly steady. The only thing moving in the whole room was a drop of water sliding off his wet sleeve and hitting the floor.“Get out,” Kael said.Jason didn’t move.“Now.”“I heard all of it.” Jason’s voice shook. “From the healer on. The door was open. I came to ask if she was hurt, and I stood there, and—“ He stopped. “I’m not leaving.”Kael took one step toward the door.“Kael.” I stood up in the water. I took the towel from his hand and wrapped it around myself, and my fingers were slow on the edge. “Don’t.”“He doesn’t get to stand there and—““Let him say it.”Kael looked at me over his shoulder. His eyes were dark and flat. He looked at the towel, then at my face, then at Jason, and I watched him weigh something I couldn’t see.“You have u
Chapter 14: What the Healer FoundOrrin made me lie flat and take off the coat.It wasn’t Kael’s coat anymore. Somewhere between the Hall of Stones and the Alpha’s rooms, a maid had brought a robe, and I’d put it on with my back to everyone. It was white wool, too long in the sleeves. I rolled one cuff back for the healer and held out my arm.“The other, Luna. Over the heart.”I opened the front. He didn’t look at anything but the place he’d named.Orrin was old. Forty years in Blackwood service, Liora had told me on the stairs, and it showed in his hands. They were thin and brown and quick, with ink under the nails. He’d come straight up from the lower villages with fever salve still on his sleeves. He had a flat leather case. He opened it on the bed beside me, and I counted what was inside. Glass tubes. A small brass lamp. A needle as thin as a hair.Kael stood at the foot of the bed.He hadn’t sat. He hadn’t spoken since he’d carried me through the door. He had his arms folded and
Chapter 13: The Silver TestI folded the cloth back over the gloves. I tied the twine in the same knot, laid the bundle in the exact center of the lid, and pushed the loose corner flat with one finger.“Luna.” Liora’s voice shook. “Please.”I walked out of the study without looking at the desk. I pulled the door to its hand’s width, the way I’d found it.“How long?” I asked.“Minutes. They’re in the east hall. Alpha Kael’s already there.” She was almost running. I walked fast enough that she had to. “Garrick sent me for you. He said not to let you go alone.”“Is Kael angry?”“He’s very quiet.”I smoothed my sleeves. I touched the key under my collar, then the pendant at my throat. My hands were steady. That surprised me.The Hall of Stones was a round room cut into the rock under the north tower, and it was colder than the rest of the castle. Twelve seats stood in a circle, carved from the same grey stone as the walls, and each one held an elder. Old men and women with white hair and
Chapter 12: Perfume on His CollarI didn’t sleep.I went back to the room he’d built, changed out of the wine-red dress, and sat up in the big bed with the lamp lit and my back against the headboard. The key lay on my chest. The doors had closed behind him at ten. At midnight, I heard laughter in the hall, somebody’s, far away. At one, the musicians packed up. At two, the castle went quiet.I kept telling myself I didn’t care.I thought about the long hall, and the way two hundred people had watched me stand there alone. I thought about Marta’s smile, and how quickly it had turned to pity.I thought about Cassia’s hand on his shoulder. I thought about the white belt and the way she’d turned her head when she smiled. I thought about the door closing, and every possible thing that could have happened on the other side of it.Walk with me.He’d said it in front of two hundred people. He’d said it while I stood in the middle of the floor and watched. I knew it was a message. I just didn’t
Chapter 11: A Luna Made of SilkBy noon, the whole castle knew why Cassia Vale had come.There was an old treaty between Silverfang and Blackwood. It had been signed years ago, before I was married, before I’d even heard the name Kael. It promised the Silverfang heir to “a son of the Blackwood line.” Alaric was the son it had been written for. Alaric was dead. Which left two Blackwood men in the house, and one of them already had a wife.Cassia had walked past that fact without slowing down. She’d kissed Kael’s cheek in the courtyard. She’d kissed Jason’s cheek, too. Both of them had stood there stiff and silent.“It’s a technicality,” Kael told me. He was fastening his cuffs in front of the mirror. He didn’t look at me. “A clause nobody has used since my father’s time. She’ll have to be fed, housed, and sent home.”“She doesn’t look like someone who goes home.”“No.” His mouth thinned. “She doesn’t.”That was all he said. He didn’t touch me before he left the room. I stood there in t







