Mir's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

Mir came down from the ridge at first light with the mark of Fin's teeth hidden under her collar. She had meant to go straight to the yard and drill the stances he had shown her. She had three days left. She did not reach the yard. Two wolves from the rival faction were dragging a bone-runner sled across the packed snow toward her door. The wolf on the sled was one of theirs, a challenger's second, gut-slashed and pale. They stopped ten paces from her and waited to see what she would do. She knew the trap. If she turned him away, the pack would say she was not fit. If she treated him, she lost the hours she needed to learn what the male challengers already knew. She told them to lay him on the flat stone outside the hut. She cut his shirt open there in the cold so every wolf who passed could see her hands work. Fin came up behind her without a word and knelt to hold the wound closed while she stitched. His fingers were steady. Hers were steadier. It took four hours. When she tied the last knot, the challenger's second was breathing even and the two wolves who had brought him were staring at the ground. Mir stood up and wiped her hands on a rag. Her father was there. She had not heard him arrive. He was leaning on the doorframe of the hut with his arms crossed, and he had been watching long enough to have seen all of it. He walked over and looked down at the wolf on the stone. Then he looked at her. "You will be alpha after me," he said. "I have decided." He said it flat, the way he said everything final. Then his eyes moved to her neck. The collar had slipped while she worked. He saw the bite. His face changed. "Who marked you." Fin stepped between them before Mir could answer. He set his shoulder square to her father and did not drop his eyes. "I did," he said. "She is mine." His wolf was up in his voice. He did not move again. He did not need to. Mir felt her own wolf rise to meet his and hold. The hide over the door lifted. A tall man in white furs ducked into the hut and straightened. He wore the collar of a visiting alpha king. He looked at Fin standing between the pack's alpha and the pack's alpha's daughter, and his mouth went thin. "Fin," he said. "You will explain yourself." He turned to Theron Ironpaw. "My apologies. My son was not supposed to be found here." The room went quiet. Mir's father lowered his arms. Mir did not move. The envoy had arrived a day early, and everything she had planned to say was already useless.