~Lila~
The mark on my palm had scabbed to a thin dark line by the time the dens stopped glancing at it.
People still looked. They just looked less. The open-yard morning had done its work: the pack had seen the blood and the words and then gone back to drills and ditches and arguments about winter wood, which was the only kind of acceptance I had wanted.
Magnus took a north-ridge report with the border captains as if the cut on his hand were weather. Sigrid had the date in her books and no longer appeared with a slate every time we passed in a corridor.
That left the ordinary weight of a keep that still needed running.
Erik had the Eidsmark yearlings on the first true rise behind the east dens at first light.
I walked out to the rail because Karin was gone and someone who had put their name on the grain weight ought to see whether the animals still looked for mountain grass under our scrub.
