Chapter 106: The Pack's Choice

I went down.

The hall was full at dawn and every wolf in the pack was in it.

Ilsa was at the top with the silver in her hand. It was a thin chain with a small disc on it and the disc was silver and it had a wolf's head on it, and it was old and it had been used before.

"Hold out your wrist," she said.

I held out my wrist.

She put the chain round it and closed the clasp and the silver went against my skin and it burned.

I have been burned before. I have put my hand on a stove and I have had a tincture spill on my arm. This was not that. This was cold and it was hot at the same time and it went up my arm and into my shoulder and the wolf in my chest stood up and howled.

I did not make a sound.

"Fourteen days," Ilsa said. "You will present yourself at the northern seat on the fourteenth day and the mark will be removed when the claim is proved."

She turned and went out.

The hall sat in silence.

And then Maeve stood up.

She was on the left-hand benches with the nine who had signed her paper and she stood up in front of the whole of the pack.

"Alpha," she said. "There is a thing this pack has to decide and it has to decide it today."

Ronan turned round.

"Say it."

"The Luna has been marked and exiled by the Council. The Council has ordered her out of this territory by noon." Maeve looked round the hall. "And the Council has not said a word about the rest of us. It has not said whether the pack stands with her or against her and it has not said what happens to a pack that harbours an exiled wolf."

The hall went up.

"Silence," Ronan said.

The hall went quiet.

"Say what you are asking," he said.

"I am asking this pack to choose." Maeve came out into the middle of the floor. "I am not asking you to choose between me and the Luna. I am asking you to choose between the Luna and the territory. Because if this pack stands with her, the Council will declare the territory vacant and we will all be out on the road by spring. And if this pack stands with the Council, the Luna goes north alone and the territory stands and the pack survives."

The hall was silent.

"That is not a choice," Colm said. He was on his feet at the back. "That is a threat dressed up as a choice."

"It is a threat," Maeve said. "It has been a threat since the day the Council put a guard on the pier. I did not make it and I cannot take it away. I am asking this pack what it wants to do about it."

Ronan came down off the step.

"You have been Beta of this pack for nine years," he said. "And you stood in a Council house and traded me for a seat and then you came back with a ledger and a flag and asked to come home. And now you are standing in my hall at dawn asking this pack to choose between its Luna and its territory."

"I am asking it to choose," Maeve said. "You cannot."

"I can. I chose this morning. I voted with the law and I marked my mate with silver and I sent her north." Ronan's voice had gone quiet. "And I will stand in this hall and tell every wolf in it that the Blackthorn Pack stands with its Luna. Not because it is wise. Because she is ours and we do not give our wolves to the Council."

The hall went up.

And this time it did not stop.

It went on for a long time and I stood in the middle of it with the silver on my wrist and watched a pack come apart.

Colm was on his feet. Nessa was on her feet. The woman who had signed Maeve's paper and had come back was on her feet. And on the other side of the hall the nine were standing with Maeve and the grey wolf from the boats was standing with them and the old woman who had been in the kitchen since before I came was standing with them.

When it stopped there were fourteen wolves on one side of the hall and eight on the other.

"Fourteen and eight," Maeve said. "The pack has chosen."

"The pack has not chosen," Ronan said. "Fourteen wolves have said they stand with the Luna and eight have said they stand with the Council. There is no majority. The pack is split."

"Then it will be split," Maeve said.

She turned and walked out of the hall and the eight went with her.

The door shut behind them.

The hall was quiet.

Nessa came over to me with her eyes wet.

"Healer," she said. "I do not want you to go north alone."

"I am not going alone." I looked at the fourteen wolves in the hall. "I am going with a smuggler and an old man and a clerk and a wolf who has never been further north than the harbour. And I am going to come back in fourteen days with the proof and the mark will come off and the eight will have to decide what they are then."

Colm came over.

"Luna," he said. "The boat is at the slip. Oisin has been loading it since dawn."

I looked at him.

"You are coming?"

"I am coming." He looked at his hands. "I have been in this pack since I was fourteen and I have never been further north than the harbour and I am frightened of the Council and I am coming."

I put my hand on his shoulder.

"Then get your coat," I said. "We are going north."

And through the bond, in the back of my head, Ronan said, Fiadh. Do not go without saying goodbye to me.

I turned round.

He was standing at the door of the hall with the light coming in behind him.

I went to him.

"Fiadh," he said. "There is a thing I have to give you."

He put his hand into his coat and took out a small thing wrapped in cloth.

I unwrapped it.

It was a knife. It was old and the handle was bone and there was a spiral cut into the blade.

"It was my mother's," he said. "It is a healer's knife. And it has a spiral on it, which is what the old blood uses, and I have been carrying it since the spring and I did not know why until now."

I put my hand on his face.

"Fourteen days," I said.

"Fourteen days," he said. "And then I will be standing on that slip when the boat comes in."

Down in the harbour, Oisin's horn sounded.

I went.

And I was halfway down the hill when I heard the shout behind me and I turned round and Nessa was running down the path with her skirts in her hands.

"Healer," she said. "Colm is not on the boat. He went back up the hill ten minutes ago and he has not come down."