Chapter 42 · Dead Men Get Songs

Torin wouldn't sit down.

Blood had dried down his ribs in a black stripe where Kaelen's knife went in. He'd already thrown the healer out twice. One sleeve left on his coat. He stood in front of the Alpha's chair like a man guarding a door he couldn't open.

"You're going to sit," I said.

"I'm going to stand."

"Torin—"

"Let them see me standing, Briar." He didn't turn his head. "Half this hall watched me beg in the mud last night. Let them see me up."

Fine. I pulled my borrowed coat tighter and stood next to him instead.

They came without a summons. Hunters with soot still on their coats. The kitchen women. The two boys who feed the hounds. They lined the wall and looked at the empty chair and the man in front of it.

Elder Marsh came up the aisle with her stick cracking stone. Eighty years old and she had never bowed to anybody. She didn't start now.

"The seat's empty," she said.

"I'm standing in front of it."

"You're standing in front of it with a severed bond and a hole in your side." She let that sit. "Kaelen's neck, before noon."

"No."