Chapter 66

Chapter 66
Abigail's POV

The trial ended before noon. But it wasn't until the camp had fallen quiet again, the fires banked low and the outer guards changed their watch, that I finally had a moment alone.

I sat on the edge of the bed, and by the light of a single lamp I slowly peeled back the crusted bandage on my forearm — where the beast's claw had cut a deep gash. The bleeding had stopped hours ago, but cleaning the wound still hurt enough to keep a person sharp. And right now, I would rather stay sharp.

I knew she would come.

From the moment that grey-bearded Alpha read out the word death, I had known that Evelyn would find her way to my tent before the night was out.

So when the flap was lifted and a cold wind slipped in around my ankles, I didn't look up, and I didn't show the slightest surprise. I just reached for the clean linen resting on my knee and kept winding it around my arm.

She stepped in and let the flap fall behind her, and she stood there for a long time without speaking.

I had never seen her like this.

The Evelyn I knew was a woman who would not let a single hair slip from its pin, who wore composure and dignity like armor over her body. But the person standing before me now had come apart at every seam she usually held tightest, piece by piece.

Her powder had smeared, settling into the fine lines at the corners of her mouth; the shadows beneath her eyes were deep as bruises. She kept her hands hidden in her sleeves, but I could still see the fabric trembling with the shaking of her fingers.

Even now, she was still trying to hold on to her last scrap of dignity.

She lifted her chin, her throat worked, as though she meant to speak, and then she swallowed the words back. Her gaze drifted around the tent, and finally landed on my bandaged arm, then darted away again, as though even meeting my eyes directly would take the last of her strength.

That struggle stayed on her face for a long time, long enough for the flame of that lonely lamp to jump several times.

"Your wound," she said at last, her voice dry and rough, though she was still trying to keep that familiar, commanding steadiness in it, "does it still hurt?"

I didn't stop what I was doing, and I didn't look up.

I knew that wasn't why she had come. She knew it too. That little show of concern was just the last step she built for herself, so she wouldn't have to say what she really came to say all at once.

When I didn't answer, the composure she had barely kept up gave way a little at a time.

She took half a step forward, then stopped, her hands tightening inside her sleeves.

"Abigail." She said my name low, and when it came out of her mouth it carried a softness I had never heard in it before, something close to pleading. "Tomorrow... tomorrow is the execution."

She broke off there, as though waiting for me to carry the rest of her sentence.

I kept winding the bandage in silence.

The air in the tent sank down a little at a time, heavy enough to press the breath out of a person.

In the end, it was that silence that left her no way out.

She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, the dignity she had been holding up so hard finally shattered, leaving nothing but bare despair.

"I came to ask you to plead for Olivia." She got it out in one breath, her voice trembling badly. "You saved the Matriarch, and the Alpha King favors you. If you stand before the council as the one who was wronged and ask for mercy, they'll grant it. They'll listen to you — you're the only one who can save her."

I didn't answer.

I finished the last turn of the bandage, tucked the end under, pressed it flat with two fingers, and made sure it held fast.

Silence spread between us again, thick enough that a person could have leaned against it.

At last I lifted my eyes to hers.

"She tried to kill me," I said, my voice flat and even. "More than once. Why should I save her?"

Evelyn's lips trembled. "The way you've changed lately. I've seen all of it. You don't act like yourself anymore, not like the girl I raised. You've already found out."

She swallowed.

"I'm not your real mother."

My heart lurched hard, and gave a violent shudder.

But not a trace of it showed on my face.