f an hour later, kneeling in the

ebrow and an expression that had spent fifteen years learning to say nothing at all. It said nothing now. Only his eyes moved: to the

N

er, and stopped again, becau

stealing apples from the Keep's cellar, and he watched the whole thing happen anyway: the c

said very soft

on

n. She

id do

and spoke in the voice he used for the battlefield, low and cold and absolute. "Burn the bodies. Search the gorge.

my K

one touc

d murmur, and he realized

l smell it. T

n," he said, "until I deci

care. "Of course," he said. "And wh

hes cast long shadows on her cheeks, and her breathing was slow and even. There was a bruise coming up alo

e most frighten

. "She's human. Sh

r being attacked b

told it was a

he mat

is no

th of a breath. "My King, I

re abo

n deny a great many things," Kael said

there is

you

rted for him, and none of them met his eyes. Behind him, in the dark among the pines, he

rl against his chest and Fenris humming deep in his veins, something small and bright and stub

d Fenris,

one, Adrian told him. Every

i

s at the Blood Moon, enormous and indifferent, and for the