or runs out into a wide bowl of grass that the old Alphas had kept clear for

of the older ones sitting on folding chairs they had carried up from the village. The morning was clear and cold and the grass was white with dew. A line of trestle tables had been set up along the

d my heart going hard. Nobody looked at me. That was the strange part. I had been braced for it, for the turning heads and the whispers,

p, and her face changed, and she leaned ove

a head turning here, a hand to a mouth there. A boy of about ten stared at me with his bread

would come, and I had promised her

since before anyone could remember. Isla sat at the middle of the table with Fergus on her right and Duncan on her left. Her hair was down today, dark brown and wavy and caught back from h

found me across the whole crowd, and her mouth did something small, a tighte

omething in her ear, and she did not turn her head, and

aid I would stand, and folded my arms, and the pa

s they have heard and agreed. She spoke about the year past, the lambing, the long wet winter, the two wolves lost on the north ridge in the spring. She

rly, there is a matter the Council

t. I saw people pu

eadership. It has been suggested that I am unfit to hold the Alpha seat, on the grou

t the back a child asked

when he means everyone to watch him, and he turned to the pack with his sil

r and I have loved her since she was born. But the Council has a duty to the pack, and I have a duty to the Council, and a complaint that is not answered b

of Isla's chair, a gesture so warm an

ter every other wolf in this bowl found theirs. The pack has never seen you in a formal challenge. There are those who say t

s silent. I

eyes find the older women at the back, and the young warriors standing toge

the rain, with no one to teach me and no one to watch. I did not ask for help because I was afraid that

the bowl. Fergus's h

ecause I have no other answer to give you. What I can tell you is that my wolf is here now, and that she has not failed me once since she came, and that I have led this pack through a hard winter without a single wolf lost to hunger or cold." She paused

se. Some of it was chee

nds. "That is my niece," he said. "You have heard her. I for one am

aw, whose name I did not know. "I would like to see the Alpha on the stone," he said. "Not t

n. Isla looked at the wa

" she said. "Name the d

talk, and the trestle tables filled up again, and I stood at the b

aint or her uncle to soften his words. She had stood in front of two hundred wo

e wanted to cross a pi

n into groups to talk about the challenge. He came around the side of the tabl

," he sai

told

front of everyone, I think. A smaller room, with the Alpha and the Beta and myself. There is a matter of your border, and a matter of your rank, and a matter of what

with a woman I did not know, listening to something about

le one until you hav

of the Alpha," I said.

d cold, and then it was gone. "The Alpha is busy with the gatheri

e can wait," I said, "u

n he smiled, and it was a warm smile,

k. "One more thing. There was a rogue found dead on the western boundary this morning. A wolf with no pack scent, cut open from throat to belly, lying in the hea

the trestle tables, and I stood there with my new gloves on my hands and my blood g