All Chapters of The Wolf She Silenced: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

The fires were burning low and the yard was nearly empty when I turned on the bench to face him."Then we are going to have this out tonight," I said. "Here, on this bench, before the moon goes down. Maren is not the only wolf who thinks your scent does not match your story. I have thought it since the first night, and I have let you put your hands on me anyway, and I am done with that."Cemal looked at me for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly."Ask," he said."Who sent you here?"He did not answer at once. The firelight moved on his face and his hands were folded in his lap."A wolf with silver hair and a grandfather's voice," he said. "I have told you that.""You have told me what he looks like. You have told me what he sounds like and what he taught you and what he gave you. You have not told me his name." I did not look away from him. "I have asked you five times and five times you have told me you gave him your word. I am going to ask you once more, and this time I am going to

The elders met at dawn in the long room, and the whole pack came with them.They filled the yard and the doorway and the steps, and the long room was so crowded that the warriors had to stand against the wall with their spears held upright. Orhan sat in the high chair. The elders sat along the table. Barış stood at the foot with his bound arm and his face set. And Selin stood at the far end with her copper hair pinned and her four warriors behind her, because the law said an envoy could watch a hearing that concerned her pack's name.I stood in the middle of the floor with Cemal beside me and the letter in my hand and my boots on my feet."The elders will hear the matter of the rogue," Orhan said. "The Luna will speak first."I spoke. I told them about the vial and the rider and the great house on the coast. I told them about the preparations on the cairns and the children in the healer's wing and the wolf in the boots. I told them about the letter in the boot and I held it up so that

I went up the stairs two at a time and Maren came behind me with her basket banging against her hip.He was sitting up.He had not sat up in three months. He was propped against the pillows with the blanket over his knees and his hands on top of the blanket, and his eyes were open and clear, and they found me in the doorway and stayed on me."Elif," he said.I stopped in the doorway with my hand on the frame."Father.""Come here." His voice was thin and dry and it was his voice. "Come and sit down. I have been trying to say your name for a month and it would not come out."I sat on the edge of the bed. His hand came up and found mine and held it, and his grip was stronger than it had been in a year."You look tired," he said."I have been busy.""You have been carrying the pack." He looked past me at Maren in the doorway and then at the room. "Where is everyone? Where is the council? I want the elders in this room."Maren set her basket down. "Alpha, you have been ill. You should res

The bell was still ringing when I reached the yard.Barış was on the wall with the warriors, and the eastern gate was open, and a wolf I did not know was being carried through it on a stretcher of pine branches. He was grey and thin and his coat was torn, and he had a silver burn on his shoulder that had gone the colour of old leather.I got to him before Maren did."Who are you?" I said.He looked up at me with eyes that could not focus. "Rogue camp," he said. "On the eastern slope. The hunters came through at dawn."The hunters. The Lantern Men. I had heard the name all my life, the way you hear a story about a wolf that eats children. They were humans with silver and lanterns who hunted werewolves on the coast, and they had not come into the mountains in twenty years."How many?" I said."Six. Maybe more." He coughed. "They had a wolf with them. A wolf in boots."I stood up. The yard was full of wolves and the bell was ringing and Maren was kneeling beside the stretcher with her ha

The howl came again, longer this time, and then a second voice answered it from the eastern slope.I pulled my coat on over my shift and we ran back along the ridge with the pine needles soft under our feet and the moon above the pines. By the time we reached the pack house the warriors were on the wall and Barış was in the yard with a spear in his hand and his auburn hair loose."Hunters," he said. "Six of them on the eastern slope with lanterns. They have not come over the wall and they have not shown silver.""They will not come over tonight," I said. "They are showing themselves. They want us to know they are there.""Then they want us frightened.""They want us to keep the warriors on the eastern wall." I looked up at the wall and the warriors and the dark beyond it. "And while we are watching the eastern slope, the wolf who walks with them is going to be somewhere else on the mountain doing something else."Barış looked at me for a long moment. Then he said, "The northern line."