Annie's POV:
The hall went quiet in a way it hadn't been quiet all day.
Tino's words had landed like a stone in still water. The elders looked at me, then at each other. The envoy's warriors shifted. The man at the envoy's table, the one who had done all the talking, turned in his seat and looked at me with new eyes.
"Tino." His voice was slow, thoughtful. "Is this the Tracker you told us about? The one from Thornwood?"
Tino didn't take his eyes off me. "Yes. The best Thornwood ever had."
The envoy chief studied me the way you study a horse you're thinking of buying. "A Tracker like that, in a servant's uniform." He smiled. "The North could use a Tracker like that. We're going to need good eyes on the ground soon."
I understood what he was offering—what he was really saying. The Nort
