Chapter 111: Fiadh's Sacrifice

The hall did not come down for a long time.

I stood in the middle of the floor with my hand still on my chest and the silver showing and the whole of the north roaring, and I watched Maeve's face in the gallery.

She had gone white.

The herald struck the floor four times and the noise died.

"The keeper will speak," he said.

Cael stood with the paper in his hand.

"I have been a keeper for seventy years," he said. "I have kept the blood and I have kept the record and I have kept the debt, and I am not going to stand in this chamber and pretend that I did not know what the debt was for. It was for keeping wolves of the founder's line in a place where they could be used." He looked at me. "I did it. I have done it my whole life and I have done it to this wolf's mother and her grandmother before her and I am not going to do it to her."

The hall was silent.

"The record names four generations," Cael said. "The first was taken north in the year of the great sickness. The second was raised in the keepers' house and never recorded. The third was born in the keepers' house and ran from it in her twenty first year. And the fourth is standing on this floor."

He put the paper down on the table.

"The claim is proved," he said. "I withdraw the letter and I say it in front of this Council and this chamber and I will say it again in front of any wolf who asks."

The hall went up.

And this time the herald did not strike the floor. He let it run. He let it go on for a full minute and then he struck the staff and the chamber went quiet.

"The Council will retire to consider," he said.

The nine at the table got up and went out through the door at the back.

I stood in the middle of the floor.

And then the eight in the gallery turned round.

They turned round one by one and looked at me, and the wolf at the front of them was not Maeve. Maeve was standing at the rail with her hands on it and her copper curls loose and her face white.

The wolf at the front was a young one. I did not know his name. He looked at me and then he looked at Maeve and then he looked at the floor.

The door at the back of the chamber opened and the herald came out.

"The Council has considered the claim," he said. "The claim of the founder's bloodline is proved. The mark of silver will be removed and the Luna of the Blackthorn Pack will be restored to her seat."

The hall went up.

I did not hear it.

I was looking at the gallery and at the eight and at Maeve standing at the rail.

"The Council will sit tomorrow to hear the charge against the elder Soren and the keeper Cael and the envoy Lorcan and the Beta of the Blackthorn Pack," the herald said. "The chamber is closed."

The doors opened. The gallery began to empty.

I went out through the side door and up the stairs to the room at the top of the east stair, and I sat down on the bed and put my hands over my face.

Ronan came in ten minutes later.

He shut the door and came and sat down beside me.

"Fiadh," he said.

"I am all right."

"You are shaking."

"I know." I took my hands away. "Ronan. There is a thing I have to say and I have been working it out all the way up the stairs and I am going to say it badly."

"Say it."

"The Council will sit tomorrow and there will be a trial and the charge will be against Soren and Cael and Lorcan and Maeve. And when it is over there will be a verdict and the verdict will be that Soren is finished and the keepers are finished and the ritual network is finished and the North is going to be reformed." I looked at him. "And then there will be the Blackthorn Pack."

"The Blackthorn Pack is fourteen wolves and a hole in the roof and a border that needs holding."

"The Blackthorn Pack is fourteen wolves and eight who turned their backs in that chamber an hour ago and a Beta who took the patrol routes to the enemy." I looked at him. "Ronan. I am going to say a thing and I want you to hear it before you argue with it. If I go back to that coast there will be a pack war. Maeve has eight and she has Ravenscar and she has the keepers behind her and half the north is going to say the Luna of the Blackthorn Pack is a founder who took a seat she was not born to. And the fourteen who stood with me will be in the middle of it."

"Fiadh."

"If I do not go back," I said, "there is no war. There is a pack with an Alpha and a Beta and a border and no founder in it and nothing for the north to argue about."

Ronan looked at me.

"You are offering to leave," he said.

"I am offering to leave."

"To leave me."

I could not answer that.

He stood up and went to the window and stood with his back to me and his hands on the sill.

"Do you want to leave?" he said.

"No."

"Then why are you offering?"

"Because I have been in nine packs," I said. "And I have watched what a pack does when it is split, and I have watched what it does when it is frightened, and I have watched it tear a wolf apart for the crime of being something it did not ask to be." My voice cracked. "And I will not do that to the fourteen. I will not stand in that hall and watch them choose between me and their own house again."

Ronan turned round.

"And what about the choice I made?" he said. "I voted with the law and I sent you north and I have been sitting in this seat for three days with the whole of the north looking at me. I did not do that so that you could hand yourself back to them at the end of it."

"Ronan."

"You are not leaving."

"I am offering it."

"You are offering it because you are tired and because you are frightened and because there is a false bond in the bottom of your chest that has been getting colder for four days." He came away from the window. "You are not leaving, Fiadh. Not tonight and not tomorrow and not after the trial."

I stood up.

"You cannot decide that for me."

"I can decide that I will not let you do it in the middle of the night in a room at the top of a stair in the northern seat with nobody there to tell you that you are wrong." He took my face in his hands. "I will not let you do it. If you want to leave the coast when the trial is over I will not stop you. But you are not going to do it tonight in a room with a lock on the door."

I stood in the middle of the room with his hands on my face.

"Ronan," I said.

"Say it."

"I am frightened."

"I know." He put his forehead against mine. "I am frightened too."

Down in the town, a bell began to ring.