Chapter 6 — The Reckoning
The moon rose red for the first time in five years, and every wolf in Ironridge felt it like a hand on the back of the neck.
They gathered on the same ground where a servant girl had once been rejected — the same dais, the same stone, the same crowd, thinner now and gray with hunger. But tonight the dais belonged to the crown. Royal guards ringed it in silver. At its center stood the oath-stone, ancient and moon-pale, brought up from the pack vaults for the first time in living memory.
"Under this moon," Orin's voice rolled across the ground, "the Crown convenes the Reckoning. Every word sworn on the stone is sworn to the Moon herself. She scorches liars. Choose your tongues with care."
They dragged Marcus Pierce up first.
Five days in chains had taken the po
