Ever since Liira had taken me under her wings, I'd learnt many royal Xatian customs. I'd spent days on end listening to the old matriarch speak of times past, present and future. What had been, what was and what would forever be for the royal wolf house. This, she'd always said was something I would one day repeat to my own sons and daughters. But no matter how much I'd learnt, whatever was unfolding before me was as strange as the tongue the high priest had used while he chanted.
It was meant to be a rehearsal. Nothing about it was to be ceremonial. Nothing would require the king of Xatis to be over dressed, and yet he had appeared in his ceremonial attire bearing his sceptre. The one thing kings had to possess when declarations or pronouncements or anything of the sort was to be made. W
