THE BRIDE OFFERED TO WOLVES

pped, and no one

one was going to, and I opened it myself, stepping down

ts head. Not a singl

der a sky that hadn't decided yet whether it would rain, and every face turned to track me as I crossed it, the way a hundred pairs of eyes track something they've a

e crowd tugged his mother's slee

im. She didn't have to. The way she pulled him away, like I mig

rse than the

ed between them, every wo

oving the way water moves, unhurried and impossible to stop. He crossed the last of the

cess

ame. Just my name, spoken l

ubborn part of me recalculated everyt

ey was lon

wonder whether

. But close enough to one that I noticed, and close eno

d worse than

. Instead I was met with silence.

," he said. "You wouldn't h

t. I hadn't expected to believe a single

ha K

d, silver-haired, dressed in furs that marked him as someone important. The Head Elder, I would lear

ejects this

rtyard

and near my hem. Someone else threw a handful of dirt that caught the front of my d

ow how. I think it was the on

oug

ord dropped into that courtyard like a stone into sti

is kingdom unde

he treaty was signed under duress,

n." Kael's voice didn't rise. It didn't n

resp

ain," Kael said, "and y

I understood, watching that old wolf lower his eyes first,

rd the palace doors without

oll

he noise of the courtyard had fallen away behind us. "You wi

id, and I meant it to s

, his eyes fixed somewhere ahead down the corridor. "You are my wife by trea

t expect

ns expect a great deal more

t most

e, quick and unreadable, be

he said, not slowing his strid

own at my dress. I said nothing. There wa

e first time since he'd come down those steps, he looked at me properly, not th

ling hands for one unreadable

harm you to

tomor

e before I could name it. He didn't answer the que

g to decide what I'd just witnessed. A man who let his own people spit on me and did nothing until it

ion of him was real. I w

ds I didn't recognize, all three of them carrying

ned, when I asked. "It's tomorr

own the date, of course, but hearing it out l

low enough that only I could hear it. "You

m f

to be fine. Not

d, "I don't know where else I'm allowed

eezed it once, the way she used to when we were children an

in tones too low for me to follow at first. One of them, older, kept glancing at the dirt still c

ic," I said, mostly

der a full moon, or so they claim

er, if everyo

wer for that, and I di

had dropped that single word and silenced an entire pack. I thought about his eyes catc

, heads bent close together near the door, voices pitched jus

one to

her

lready has a

room

ng was t

marryin

g another wom