Chapter 11 - THE COUNCIL OF THE SEVEN PACKS
The great hall of Ironcliff was carved directly from the living heart of the granite mountain.
A massive round table of petrified ironwood sat in the center of the hall, illuminated by forty roaring iron braziers.
Seven clan chiefs sat around the perimeter.
Hard, weathered men and women who had spent their lives fighting the harsh northern winters and southern border skirmishes.
At the head of the table sat Gideon Hayes.
He wore his royal armor of blackened steel inlaid with gold filigree, his heavy fur cloak pinned with the silver wolf head of his house.
Beside him sat Hazel.
She had been bathed in warm mountain spring water, the bitter lye soap washed from her skin forever.
She wore a gown of dark emerald velvet, the long sleeves concealing the linen wrapping on her right palm.
Her auburn hair was braided with delicate silver ribbons, cascading down her back like a river of autumn leaves.
Across the table sat Lord Torin of the Frost Peak Clan.
A massive warrior with bear-like shoulders and a scar running from his ear to his beard.
Torin leaned forward, his heavy fists thumping against the ironwood table.
"We do not dispute that the King lives," Torin growled, his voice like gravel.
"We see his scars."
"We feel his Alpha presence."
"What we dispute is the girl."
Torin pointed a thick, calloused finger at Hazel.
"A laundry servant."
"A mongrel raised in the common quarters."
"You ask us to risk fifty thousand northern lives to place a commoner on the royal dais beside you, Gideon!"
Gideon’s eyes narrowed into slits of gold.
A dangerous, suffocating pressure dropped over the room.
The air grew heavy with Alpha command.
Several of the younger clan chiefs shifted uncomfortably in their high-backed chairs, their breath catching.
"Choose your next words with great care, Torin," Gideon said, his voice terrifyingly calm.
"You speak of the woman who walked into death's teeth to pull my soul back from the void."
"I speak of bloodlines, Sire!" Torin fired back, refusing to yield.
"The royal line of Hayes must be pure!"
"If she is truly an Aurelian, let her prove it!"
"The legends say the white wolves could command the frost itself!"
"They say their blood could purge the rot from an ancient tree!"
Hazel stood up.
The silk of her gown rustled softly in the tense silence.
She did not wait for Gideon to defend her.
She had spent six weeks cleaning the blood from this castle's laundry, listening to men boast of their strength while women scrubbed their boots.
She walked slowly around the petrified wood table until she stopped beside Lord Torin’s chair.
"My Lord Torin," Hazel said, her voice clear, musical, and unshakable.
"Your left hand."
Torin frowned, his brows pulling together.
"What of it?"
"You keep it tucked beneath your wolfskin cloak," she observed quietly.
"You have not picked up your wine goblet since you entered the hall."
"You lean your weight to the right to spare the shoulder."
Torin’s jaw tightened.
He slowly drew his left hand from beneath the heavy fur.
The hand was blackened from the knuckles to the wrist.
Frost-rot.
Contracted during the mountain blizzard three days ago while riding to the fortress.
The skin was dead, weeping clear fluid, the veins beneath hardened into black cords.
"The field surgeon says it comes off at sunrise," Torin muttered bitterly, his pride wounded.
Hazel reached into her sleeve.
She drew her small carbon steel paring knife.
Without a moment of hesitation, she sliced a thin, clean line across the tip of her left forefinger.
A single, perfect pearl of bright crimson blood welled on her skin.
It glowed with an ethereal, starlit luminescence in the dim firelight.
She touched her bleeding finger directly to the blackened flesh of Torin’s rotting knuckles.
Torin flinched, expecting agony.
Instead, a gasp tore from his throat.
A wave of pure, golden warmth swept through his mangled arm.
The black necrosis dissolved like morning mist beneath a summer sun.
The dead tissue flaked away into clean, pink skin.
The curled, paralyzed fingers straightened one by one with a soft series of clicks as the tendons regenerated in seconds.
Torin stared at his hand.
He opened and closed his fist, his grip returning with full, crushing power.
The room fell into a silence so profound that the crackle of the braziers sounded like thunder.
Torin looked up at Hazel.
The arrogance, the skepticism, the defiance in his weathered face was completely gone.
He pushed his chair back.
He dropped to one knee before the laundry maid, bowing his head until his forehead touched the stone floorboards.
"Forgive me, my Queen," Torin whispered, his voice trembling with awe.
"The Frost Peak Clan is yours."
"Our blades."
"Our bows."
"Our lives."
One by one, the remaining six clan chiefs rose from the table.
They drew their silver hunting daggers and planted the points into the ironwood table in the ancient northern oath of fealty:
"FOR THE KING!"
"FOR THE HEALER!"
"DEATH TO THE SOUTHERN TRAITORS!"
Gideon stood up, drawing his broadsword from its scabbard.
The steel rang like a bell through the mountain hall.
May you like
"To arms!" Gideon roared.
"We ride for the capital!"
