Chapter 17 — What the Crypts Heard
Vanessa Pierce wept beautifully for the elders on a Tuesday.
She had chosen the small council room over the great hall — intimate, badly lit, the kind of place where old men feel important and lower their guard. She wore her plainest dress. She had scrubbed the paint off her face and left the shadows under her eyes exactly where the crying had put them.
"I don't ask you to save me," she said. "I ask you to remember me."
Elder Prewitt shifted in his chair. Elder Hobb studied his hands. Four of the nine had come — the four who had signed the original judgment five years ago, the four with the most to lose if the Crown kept pulling threads.
"Vanessa—"
"I was nineteen." Her voice broke on cue. "My father put papers in front of me and told me our Alpha w
