Chapter 28
The wolf wound in my thigh was itchy so without thinking I reached down to scratch it and my heart missed a beat. The jagged wound had been stitched. I rubbed my finger along the coarse stitching. I touched the wound in my side. Stitched! What in hell? My head was spinning. How [...]

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Ruth fought back the voices in her head. They had returned in a screaming frenzy. This had to be done. It was the only way. She held her head with both hands as if to stop it splitting in half from the growing pressure within. Her eyes focused on the battlement as she walked through [...]

Nelly pulled on Helen’s hand as the two made their way down the narrow stone stairway to the long hallway. “I will try to sneak you out the gate. Keep your head down. Act like you are a sick servant girl. And don’t look anyone in the eye.”
Nelly pulled Helen largely ignored, through a group [...]

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James Gunn didn’t stop to knock. He pushed open the tavern door and marched in with purpose. His journey to Ackergill had been an unwelcome but necessary diversion. He meant to make it short.
Henry and Torquil sat at large table dipping fresh bread into a bowl of gravy, each slurping the soggy bits into [...]

Nelly Bass turned the key in the brass lock, and swung the door open. Shuffling through the door, clothes in one hand and a pot of food in the other, she saw Ruth, and stopped abruptly. “Who are you?”
“This is my mother,” Helen said, stepping forward.
“You don’t say,” Nelly chuckled. “That guard downstairs thought you [...]