Chapter 110: The Moon Ceremony

They did not take me to the chamber.

They took me to a room at the top of the northern seat with a window that looked out over the harbour and a bed and a fire and a lock on the door, and they said the ceremony would be at moonrise.

"What ceremony?" I said.

"The ceremony of presentation," the wolf said. "The Luna of the Blackthorn Pack will be presented to the Council before the trial. It is the law."

He shut the door and locked it.

I sat down on the bed with the box in my lap.

Ronan came through the bond before the door was even cold.

Fiadh. Can you hear me.

I can hear you.

They have put you in the room at the top of the east stair.

They have. There is a lock on the door and a fire and a bed and a window with a view of the harbour. It is the best room I have been in since the Council town.

Fiadh. The ceremony is a trap.

I know it is a trap. What kind of trap?

There are four elders in the chamber and two of the keepers and the whole of the north is coming to watch. And Maeve is here. She came in three days ago and she has been sitting at the back of the chamber with the eight and she has been talking to the keepers.

What has she been saying?

She has been saying that the Luna claimed the bloodline without proof and that the pack of the Blackthorn has been split by her and that she, Maeve, is the rightful Beta of a pack that has been taken from its own wolves by a founder.

I sat on the bed.

She is going to present me at the ceremony and the pack is going to refuse to acknowledge the mark.

I think so.

Then we let them.

Ronan was quiet for a moment.

Fiadh.

I am not going to stand in a chamber and be shamed in front of the whole of the north and then go into a trial with a book and a seal. I am going to stand in that chamber and be shamed in front of the whole of the north and then go into a trial with a book and a seal and win. The shaming does not matter. The book matters.

The bond went quiet.

Then I felt him laugh.

You are the most practical woman I have ever met.

I know.

Moonrise came at eight.

They came for me with a lamp and a guard and they took me down a long stair and through a door and into the great chamber of the northern seat.

It was enormous. I have been in the Council chamber in the south and it was a room. This was a hall. There were pillars and a gallery and a hundred wolves in the gallery and a table at the far end with nine chairs behind it.

Five elders and four keepers.

Cael was in one of them. He was older than I remembered and he did not look at me.

And in the gallery, on the left, in the front row, there were the eight Blackthorn wolves who had gone north with Maeve. And Maeve was at the front of them with her copper curls tied back.

"The Luna of the Blackthorn Pack," the herald called. "Presented to the Council of Alphas."

I stood in the middle of the floor.

"Let the mark be shown," the herald said.

I put my hand on my chest and pulled the collar of my shirt aside and the silver crescent showed.

The hall was silent.

And then the eight in the gallery turned their backs.

That is what they did. They stood up in the gallery and they turned their backs to the floor and stood with their shoulders to the chamber and their faces to the wall.

The hall went up.

It went up in a roar that filled the whole of the chamber and I stood in the middle of the floor with my hand on my chest and the silver showing and the whole of the north watching.

"Silence," the herald called.

The hall did not go silent.

"Silence," he called again, and struck the floor with a staff, and this time it went quiet.

"The pack of the Blackthorn has refused to acknowledge the mark," the herald said. "The Council will note it in the record."

"Note it," I said.

The hall turned round.

"The Council will note that eight wolves of a pack of twenty two turned their backs on a Luna in a chamber in the north," I said. "And the Council will note that the other fourteen are standing on a harbour wall on the Blackthorn coast with the roof of their house half gone and the border unguarded because their Beta took the patrol routes north and gave them to Ravenscar."

The hall went up again.

Maeve came to the front of the gallery.

"Elder," she said. "The Luna has no proof of anything. She has a claim and a silver mark and a stone in her pocket and she has been in the north for one hour and she is already casting accusations at a Beta who has served her pack for nine years."

"The Beta will be silent," the herald said.

"I will not be silent." Maeve came down the gallery stair. "I have been in this town for three days and I have been in front of the keepers and I have told them what I know. The Luna is a wolf from Galway with a mother who was a debtor and a debt that was paid by a trust and a claim that has been withdrawn by the only wolf who can prove it. She is a fraud and she has taken a pack and a mate with it."

The hall was silent.

And then Cael stood up.

He was ninety one years old and he stood up out of his chair with his hands on the table in front of him and the whole of the chamber turned to look at him.

"Elder," he said. "The Beta is wrong."

The hall went completely silent.

"I wrote a letter two weeks ago that said the wolf known as Fiadh was not of the founder's blood and that I had been coerced into naming her heir." Cael looked at me. "That letter was written by a wolf who threatened my grandchildren and it was signed by me in fear. I am ninety one years old and I have been a keeper for seventy of them and I am not going to die with a lie on my name."

He put his hand into his coat and took out a paper.

"This is the record of the founder's line," he said. "It names four generations. The fourth is Fiadh, healer, of the Blackthorn Pack, and she is the heir."

The hall went up.

And this time it did not come down.