THE BRIDE OFFERED TO WOLVES

ss...wa

ot in eighteen years. She did today, and that was how I knew befor

ar is

of casualty lists. Three years of boys coming

out of her, and her voice

er already

ned

chair and held it out with both hands shaking, and tha

ridor, past guards who wouldn't look at me, past maids who stopped sweeping and then quickly l

before him. The wax seal was broken. His signature was already dry. I hadn't eve

him. Not one of them lifte

..what i

own, E

tand. What is

even started coming out of him. My father's hands never shook. Not during the worst of

onfang envoy last night," he sai

before the rest of the sentence caug

are con

always co

o end the war on one conditi

went ve

he is," I said, though my voi

's

asier than the alternative.

ot lau

ut sharper than I meant it to. "Not

of a chancellor left in this kingdom.

ifically? What does t

one I didn't know by name, op

most a flinch. The young advisor closed his mouth and

y, because I understood already that it

" I asked my father, "b

le

ght for me?

in, and when it came out, it wasn't an apol

." His voice broke clean in half on the next sentence.

for that. I'm no

ed this," he

en seal on the table betwe

t that would help. "Princess, thousands of soldi

thing. You gave it.

ena

"You didn't wake me to ask. You woke

hat was somehow wo

s the war start a

ready signed. The

all? Why not send the trunks a

d to hear it from me

and the words tasted lik

ne who came home with one arm and eyes that didn't focus on anything any

I said.

the middle of it, an

u signed away the war, Fathe

t my eyes this time either.

the only one anyone

od at the door of a carriage that would carry me

land to know things the rest of us only whispered about. I heard

ng has never

treason," the guard answered.

head to anyone in his life. Not

wood of the axle, working it in with his thumbs like it mattered more than anything else he'd done that morning. When I asked wha

ore the door shut. His hands were still shak

that like it will

But it's

ront of the men who had decided my future around a table I hadn't been invited t

rdinary oak and birch of my father's land giving way to something olde

hing none of the rest of us could smell yet. One of the mares tried to turn back the way we'd come, and it too

d, more to himself than to me. "Alwa

hill minutes late

eyes, staring back a

o welcome. N

olf bared

ut of the ground itself, thousands of wolves baring their teeth at the human chosen to become their queen

contact," my d

ead, my heart slamming against my ribs, an

d to hold its breath, and the air itself changed, pine and rain

underst

still, looking down at the road as if he had been standing

I had never seen so mu

anyone said a single

o had ende

r once asked for my