Page 84 of In Her Own Rite

My brow furrows. “What?”

“Yeah, I didn’t get it then, either. The ancestors gave me a message, but it didn’t make sense until a few years later.”

“When you met Maren.”

“When I met Maren.”

I bring a knee up to my body on the rock. “So what’s Kieran’s biggest weakness?”

He shakes his head, waving a hand. “That’s between him and the ancestors.”

“No, it’s not,” I say, and I find that my words surprise me. “We all live together. We all see each other, every day. If you don’t see the people you love, it’s because you’re not paying attention. What do you see?”

He cocks his head, thinking. Finally he says, “I think he spends a lot of time protecting people he sees as vulnerable, so he doesn’t have to feel vulnerable himself.”

“Huh.” I look down at my feet. I don’t know what I would have said. And I wonder for a moment ifI’vebeen seeing Kieran this whole time. I’ve been so angry that he’s not seeing me. But have I really been paying attention?

I look up at the trees around us, and I think about Kieran as a kid, wandering these woods by himself after being kicked out by his brothers. I think about what he said about making himself big, before he even met me.I had to. And then, like a sucker punch to the stomach, I remember what he said about the night before he left for Keist.

I didn’t want to make you choose. Not because I wanted to spare you the decision… But because if I asked you to choose and it hadn’t been me…

I look up at Seb. “You’re smarter than I give you credit for.”

He laughs. “I do okay. I think we all forget, sometimes.”

“That you’re so smart?” I roll my eyes.

He laughs. “No, dumbass. That the rest of thefikais growing up around us, just like we are.”

I nod, eyeing him. Trying to see him through new eyes: not as the angry little kid I grew up with, but as the man he is now. Maren’s mate. A leader in ourfika-to-be. And he is, in a way. But he’s also just Seb.

“So what about me?” I ask finally. “What’s my greatest weakness?”

He shakes his head. “That’s for you to figure out, in these woods in the coming weeks. Knowing thekiyyulitwill take the form of your dad in the ring is easy. Understandingwhyis the key to overcoming him when the time comes.”

I nod. “You know, this first session is nothing like what I thought it would be.”

He shrugs and stands up. “I’m going to walk back to the house. Sit here for a while and think. See what comes to you. I have some prompts for you in the coming days, but for today, I just want you to reflect on what you think you’ll see in the ring, and why.”

I nod and he starts the walk towards the house. As he leaves, I take a look at his footprints in the snow, unevenly spaced after what the rite took from him.

I know I should think about my dad, and why he scares me, or what I’m most afraid of. But instead, I find myself thinking about Kieran. And specifically, why Kieran’s biggest demons would be mine, and what that says about both of us.

31

KIERAN

It takes another four days before the rest of the pack council agrees to let me speak to Thalia Nayakka. When they bring her in, I’m already sitting at Sigur's desk at the marshal’s office. She looks like shit, and she reeks of thetrotsayyitanduikbaane they’re using to control her shift. Her eyes are rimmed with dark circles.

Sigur leads her in and sets her down in the chair across from me, then gives me a nod. He leaves the room, leaving the door open just a crack.

“Well. You look like hell,” I say.

“Yeah,” she says, her voice slightly hoarse. “Doesn’t do the soul much good to sit locked up in a basement for four days with limited food and water.”

I grimace. We shouldn’t be treating them this way, regardless of what they’ve done.

“You want some water?” I ask, reaching for the bottle I had sitting on the desk.

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