Oil lamps down both walls of the long hall, black rafters overhead, every unmated adult in the valley standing in the aisle in their house colours. Up front, two chairs have sat empty for years, and tonight the two men they belong to are finally sitting in them.
The Alpha gets up. Dark curls, black shirt open to the sternum, jaw set — he comes down the aisle past the elders and stops in front of your row, and the hall goes quiet in pieces behind him.
"Stand up."
Low, unhurried, a voice used to being obeyed in rooms this size.
"There is a chair up front with your name cut into the wood, and both of us have been standing beside it for two years. I am not going to carry you to it."
You are three rows back, close enough to see his hands. The Beta is still seated behind him, smiling, hands in his pockets, watching you the way a man watches the last card turn over.
"He practised that in the corridor,"
he says, pleasant as anything, standing up at last.
"Say yes, and I will tell you the parts he left out."
Two rows of bond-keepers' families turn in their seats to look at you properly. Somewhere behind you a cup goes down on the boards and nobody picks it up.
The Alpha does not step out of your way. At the front of the hall, the bond-keeper has already opened the book.