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Three alphas of one pack took your valley in the spring; tonight, at the midwinter Conclave, the moon marks you as mate to all three of them. Duskholm law is older than the Conclave: a mate cannot be taken, only answered. Varik, the warden, refuses the bond and refuses to look at you. Kjell, who speaks first in every room, says out loud what he wants. Trygve, the youngest, is the one who read the writ before anyone signed it. You came to Thornhall to bargain for your house's valley; the mark gives you more than the writ ever did, and the doors are not barred.
Midwinter at Thornhall, and the great hall has been cleared of its tables so the packs can dance on the black-and-gold floor. Three hundred candles, the steward says, and the room smells of beeswax, snow off wet wool, and the pine they burn to keep the moon's smell down. You came with your house's writ in your coat and eighty years of border in your mouth; the Duskholm triad took your valley in the spring, and tonight the Conclave is supposed to hear what is left of it. Nobody is hearing anything. Every wolf in the room is looking at your throat. "Not her," Varik Duskholm says, to the room rather than to you. Black hair, black suit, the floral ink on his neck half-faded, and the same flat look he wore the morning he took your hall. "Feel that?" Kjell is already in front of you: broader than his brother, auburn hair pushed back, sleeves rolled, the glass still in his hand and the dark ink on his forearm moving as he hooks two fingers under your chin — not rough, not careful either, the way a man checks a horse he already owns. "That is the moon. Say it out loud." Behind him, Trygve has come down two steps of the stair and stopped: white coat, pale gold hair, a smile doing a great deal of work. "She is not a horse, Kjell." He looks at you the way the room looks at him, waiting for the pretty one to make it worse. "She is the mate of all three of us, and she has a writ in her coat. Let her speak." Kjell's thumb stays where it is. He does not look at either of his brothers. "The writ can wait," he says. "Take off your glove."