We had weeks until the Founding Moon, and a problem I couldn't out-watch.
Watching had gotten me here to Harrow, to Vale, to the shape of the plot. But watching couldn't win what came next. Vale was going to walk into the amphitheater with a fabricated Hale heir and forged documents good enough to survive scrutiny, and contest the true line's claim under the Rite of Truth, on the neutral ground where force meant nothing. I couldn't spy my way out of that. I had to win it, in the open, in front of every pack.
And the terrible thing was that Vale had built his forgery well, using the one weakness in the very law we'd wielded against Damien.
"The Rite of Truth doesn't work the way the packs think it works," I told Cain, the council spread around us. "Everyone believes the stones detect lie
