The oath ceremony fills the hall wall to wall, and Hetta put me near the front like she promised.
My wrist is wrapped, my lip is split, and I stand straight anyway, because straight is all I've got.
Selba: Don't get comfortable up here. You're a stain on the good rug.
Selba stands at my shoulder in her rose dress, sweet as poison, and her hand rests on my back like she's being kind.
Hetta and Rolf say their oath with their hands locked, and the whole hall feels warmer for it.
Hetta: I choose him. I'd choose him again tomorrow.
I clap, and my hands shake, and I clap anyway.
Then the hall door opens, and the air changes.
Kerrick Vane walks in with two men behind him, tall and pale with cold blue eyes, here from a northern pack to swear the oath and be gone.
He passes the third row, and something in my chest pulls so hard that I take a step before I tell my legs to.
The wolf I keep folded up small lifts her head for the first time in years.
Kerrick: What in the hell.
His head turns. His nostrils flare. His eyes find me like a knife finding a gap in the ribs.
The hall goes quiet in a wave, row by row, and every face turns to see where he's looking.
Selba: No. No, that's not.
Selba's hand comes off my back like I'm suddenly hot.
He walks to me. The bond pulls me toward him, warm and sure, like it's been waiting my whole life to be right about something.
I let myself hope for one stupid second.
At the front of the hall, Caelum has gone still.
Then I see his face up close. It's not wonder and it's not devotion. It's disgust.
Kerrick: A mate. My mate is this.
He steps back from me like I smell of rot.
Kerrick: Look at her. A mended dress and a split lip and no wolf in her at all.
Kerrick: You're the archive bitch everybody talks about. The wolfless one.
Kerrick: I, Kerrick Vane, reject you. I won't have a servant for a mate and I won't have pack scraps in my bed.
Kerrick: I'd rather bed a cold corpse than put my mark on you.
Somebody laughs, then more of them, and it spreads across the hall like spilled wine.
Kerrick: Don't follow me. Don't speak to me. You're nothing to me now.
He walks out, and the bond pulls after him like a dog on a rope.
Marda: Of course. What did anyone expect?
Selba: She tricked him. Everyone knows what she is.
My mother says it loud so the hall can agree, and people nod along.
I don't cry. I stand still while the pull in my chest tears at me like a hook.
I'm not giving them that too.
Selba grabs my hurt wrist and hauls me stumbling behind the tall candle stand, where the hall can't see.
Selba: You did this. You and your sneaking, wolfless little tricks.
She throws me at the pillar, and my shoulder slams into it and my head cracks back against the rock so hard the candles smear.
My lip splits open on my teeth, and blood runs warm down my chin and onto my collar.
Marda: Get up. Fix your face. You've shamed this family enough.
Marda: Talk back once more and I'll hand you to the logging crew at the north camp, and they'll use you till there's nothing left of you but a name nobody remembers.
I believe her. I've believed her all my life, and the believing is what keeps me still.
Then Briar is at the edge of the candle stand with her apron still on, and Nico's hand is on her arm.
Briar: Get your hands off her.
Selba: Say that again and your stall's gone by morning. I'll have your name off the market roll before the bread's cold.
Briar doesn't move back. Nico doesn't pull her away either.
Something hot comes up through my chest, and it's not the bond and it's not shame.
It's anger, and it's cleaner than the bond ever was.
For the first time, I want to make them pay.