Part 3The Alpha's Mark Came Too Late

"When?"

"The next eclipse," I said. "Scents are hardest to distinguish that night. No one will be able to pick out mine.

"I've checked the cliff. Twenty paces down, there's a stone ledge hidden from anyone standing above. Rig a net there. Beneath the net is an underground river that never freezes in winter. It will carry me downstream."

"But you'll still be alive." He stared at me. "If you go over that cliff alive, all he has to do is follow your scent downstream. He'll know you survived."

I pulled a crystal vial from the lowest shelf of the medicine rack and set it on the table. "I've prepared deathgrass potion. It will stop my heart for six hours."

I looked out the window. There were three days left until the next eclipse.

Around midnight, an uproar erupted outside the medicine hut.

I pushed the door open and found a crowd gathered outside.

At the front, a mother knelt in the snow, cradling a pup whose body had already gone stiff.

I knew that pup.

Two nights earlier, his fever wouldn't go down, so I had given him half a spoonful of a fever-reducing potion.

"You killed him." The mother lifted her head. "You gave him that medicine."

I crouched down and reached for the pup, but his mother shoved me away. "Don't touch him!"

"Bring the medicine here," I said. "I'll drink it in front of all of you."

Someone fetched the small clay bowl from the hut. I took it and drank from it.

A quarter of an hour passed. I remained standing in the snow, completely unharmed.

I was about to speak when I heard footsteps approaching from the direction of the altar.

Celine had arrived.

Supported by two maids, she approached the mother and crouched beside her. She brushed the snow from the pup, then looked up at me.

"Did you touch this pup?"

I froze.

I had touched him. I had pressed his belly to check for bloating, but only for a few seconds.

I nodded. "I did."

"Then it wasn't something he swallowed." She turned to the mother. "His skin is flushed and his face has turned blue. He must have touched something that triggered an allergy.

"Ella treats so many patients every day. She could easily have come into contact with something without realizing it."

A murmur swept through the crowd around us at her words. The color drained from my face.

She had not accused me of poisoning him. She had accused me of carrying an allergen on my hands.

The accusation had no evidence behind it, but it didn't need any.

I did not dodge when the mother threw herself at me.

Her nails scratched my face from my brow to my jaw, but no one stepped forward to stop her.

The trial took place before the altar, with torches arranged in a ring and the entire pack assembled.

Theron sat above me on the altar while I knelt before him.

The Elder raised his head. "Why did that pup die?"

I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

A three-month-old pup had died overnight. I could think of seven or eight possible causes, but I could not name even one with certainty.

I had not been given enough time to examine the body, and I would not guess at a diagnosis.

Theron remained silent until the Elder finished reading the final charge. Then he stood and declared, "Her negligence caused a pup's death. Make her kneel on the silver sand until dawn."

The bed of crushed silver before the altar was where those who broke pack law were made to kneel.

When I knelt, the sharp silver grit dug into my knees, sending pain deep into my bones.

The snow fell harder. Theron remained on the altar until midnight, silent and unmoving.

By the time Gordon came to help me up, both my legs were numb.

He escorted me to my door, pressed a small cloth bundle into my hand, then turned and left.

It was not medicine, but moss soaked in snowmelt to dress my wounds.

I sat on the threshold and laughed aloud.

He had buried his concern so deep that in the three years I'd been there, I had never once seen a trace of it.

I looked up at the sky. Three days until the eclipse.