roperly up, and she did not look pleased about it. She had a lantern in o

go back to the house. This

as good as an order, and Doran went back up the path with hi

rinking from it. I had seen it from the ridge and thought I knew what it was. Up close it was sma

wo fingers a month, then three, then a hand. I have measured it every m

" Rhys sa

her lantern on a stone and turned to me, and her

and looked at my palm, then at the inside of my w

," she

n, harder this time. "You

cked up a tin cup that had been sitting by the stones and dipped it into

e backed away from the cup the way she had backed away from nothing else in my lif

t do to her?

s on her," E

dr

fore, iron and honey and something older, like the smell of rain on hot stone. My throat clo

air down her back, kneeling at the water. A man in a uniform I did not know with a clipboard under his arm, standing where Rhys stood. The old Alpha, I knew him by

ground and my knees in the frost

ce was sharp. "N

tasted of iron and honey a

ou see?" El

icked up the cup and put it back on the

then he looked at Elspeth. "Sh

xpression I could not read, and her old hands were folded

he said at last. "Both of

"Elspeth. What did

ipped cup," Elspeth said,

f a step behind me, and I could feel him watching the back of my neck t

hought that was the prize. It was not. The prize was the fact that it was dying, and that nobody outside Kielder knew it

pocket now. It was w

ught my elbow and t

hands went white on the cup and your eyes went s

" I said. "N

ar it." His hand was still on my elbow and his thumb had

s face in the early light, at the frost in his pale hair and the blue-grey eyes that were not calm now, and my

into the spring," I said. "And a young wolf

He took one step back, then another, and his fa

room," he

hy

racked in the middle. "I have to speak to Els

with his coat open and his hands clenched, and I stood at the gate with my h

s watching me with his arms folded and his head tilt