Chapter Twenty: The Dirty Hands

Dain finally says it, as strategy because that's the only way it's safe to say: he has spent his whole life needing no one, and now there's one door he needs walked back through, and it's her, and he's begging her not to make him stand at it. But Wren has the Warden's own slip: every thread anchors to one spindle, strung on the leashed strength she keeps in her seat. So Wren won't take the loom. She'll ring Fenna's bell standing up, in the middle of the biggest holdfast in the world, and turn the loom back into a tired old woman in a room that's stronger than she is. Dain comes as one wolf, not an alpha. And the Circle's seat isn't a fortress, it's hundreds of the leashed breathing in the dark, and the Warden is glad they brought something to lose. Comment your nerves, and add to library.