Page 24
I take a lamp into the inner passage, past the pool. The light moves over the water as I round the bend and pass out of her sight.
In the deep chamber, the bowl stands where I put it the day she slept through. I set the lamp beside it and lift the cloth. The bolt-head lies against the rim, still joined to its broken stub.
I carry it back with the cloth folded beneath the bowl.
She straightens when I come through the opening. Her eyes move from my face to what I’m carrying.
“That’s mine.”
I kneel beside the pallet and take hold of the wood. The moonbright still reaches me through the dried blood. I keep the iron clear of my palm.
“Hold it by this.”
She puts out her right hand, and I lower the stub into it. Her thumb settles beneath the splintered end. She turns it toward the fire, then brings her left hand under the right to steady it.
Not much iron, for that much blood.
“I thought it would be bigger.” She turns it again. “It certainly felt bigger.”
I don’t know what she wants me to say to that.
The edge catches the light, and she stops moving it.
“What’s on it?”
“Moonbright. Something else mixed with it. I don’t know what.”
She lifts the head toward her nose. I put the bowl beneath her hands.
“Keep it clear of your skin.”
“I know what moonbright does.”
“This does more.”
She lowers it a little, looking at me over the point.
I settle back on my heels. “Weeks ago, I heard hunters talking about a new Warden weapon. One claimed his brother had seen it used. ‘Wolves die as men now.’ Those were his words.”
Her eyes return to the iron.
“Men talk.”
“You were human when I found you. On the new moon. Your shoulder was bleeding around that head, and the wound stayed open after I took it out.”
She looks down at the bandage. The bolt trembles in her right, so I keep the bowl beneath it.
“I can still smell wolf on your skin. But there’s no wolf beneath it. There wasn’t one by the river, either.”
Her fingers close harder around the wood.
She’s the first I’ve seen struck with this weapon. The second coating has dried in a dark seam along the iron.
“Your wolf is dead. The pack bond is severed.”
She looks straight at me now. Her lips part, but she takes a breath instead.
“When the poison clears—”
