Chapter 152: Ronan's Doubt Returns

We buried my grandmother on the hill above the harbour two days later.

The priestess said the words and the whole of the coast came. There were Blackthorn wolves and rogues and highland wolves and two Ravenscar wolves that Callum sent and there were the nine and the fourteen and the seven and the twelve and there was a woman of ninety one who had been in a room at the top of a house for sixty years and had been carried down the hill in a chair.

Ailsa. The woman who was not my grandmother and who had known what the house was for and had been kept in a room for it.

She had spoken on the way down the hill. Three words. She had said, out of the room. And then she had not spoken again.

I put my hand on the earth of the grave and I said my grandmother's name out loud in front of the whole of the coast, and it was the first time it had been said in forty years.

Mairi.

And when it was done I went down the hill with Ronan and I sat on the step of the pack house and I did not say anything for a long time.

"Fiadh," Ronan said.

"Give me a minute."

He gave me a minute.

"There is a thing I have to tell you," I said at last.

"What?"

"I am going to go north." I looked at him. "Not to the trial. Before the trial. There is a thing in a cell in the north and it is ninety four years old and it has been three steps ahead of me since the spring and I am going to go and sit with it."

Ronan looked at me.

"Alone," he said.

"Alone."

He did not say anything for a moment.

"Fiadh," he said. "You have been keeping something from me."

I looked at him.

"What?"

"You have been keeping something from me since the ridge." He looked at the harbour. "I have been feeling it through the bond for three days. It is not a lie. It is a thing you have not said and you have been carrying it and every time I come near it you turn away."

I sat on the step.

"Ronan," I said.

"Say it."

I looked at the harbour.

"The trial is in twelve days," I said. "And the Council will hear the charge of the breaking of the chain and the three deaths. And I have been thinking about what happens after the trial."

"And?"

"And if the Council rules against me there will be a sentence. And the sentence for a founder who breaks a chain and kills three wolves is not exile and it is not a fine." I looked at him. "It is the house of the north. They will record me and they will keep me and they will put me in a room at the top of the house and I will be the fourth generation to go into it."

Ronan stood up.

"That is not going to happen," he said.

"It might."

"It is not going to happen."

"Ronan. I have been in a Council chamber and I have been in a square and I have been in a cellar. I have been marked with silver and exiled and called a fraud and a murderer and I have been declared a rogue Alpha's mate." I looked at him. "And I have been thinking that if the Council rules against me there is one thing I can do that will keep the coast and the pack and you out of it."

"What?"

"I can go into that house of my own accord." I looked at him. "If I go in willingly and I am recorded, the Council has what it wants and the coast is confirmed and the pack is safe and the trial is over."

Ronan looked at me.

"You would go into that house," he said.

"If it keeps the coast."

"Fiadh." His voice had gone quiet. "You would go into the house your grandmother died in and your mother was bred in and you would sit in a room at the top of it for the rest of your life."

"If it keeps the coast."

Ronan turned round and walked away from me across the yard and stood with his back to me at the gate.

And through the bond, the door shut.

I felt it. It was the same thing I had felt on the cliff above the harbour in the north and it was the same thing I had felt in the hall when Ailsa stood up and said my mother was born in the keepers' house. It was a pulling back and a shutting and then it was quiet.

"Ronan," I said.

"I need a minute," he said.

"Ronan."

He turned round.

"You have been carrying that since the ridge," he said. "You have been carrying it and you have not said a word and you have been sitting on the step of this house with your grandmother in the ground and you have been working out how to give yourself to a house in the north." He looked at me. "And you did not tell me."

"I am telling you now."

"You are telling me now because I asked." He came across the yard. "Fiadh. I have been through a false bond and a silver mark and a challenge and a war and a fire with you. And every time I have found out what you were doing it was because somebody else told me or because I worked it out myself."

The yard was quiet.

"That is not fair," I said.

"It is not fair and it is true." He stopped in front of me. "You have been alone for ten years and you have been keeping things to yourself for ten years and I know it. But you are not alone now and every time you keep a thing from me the door shuts and I cannot stop it."

I stood on the step.

"I know," I said.

"Then say it. Say the whole of it. Not the part you think I can take."

I looked at him.

"All right," I said. "The whole of it. I am frightened. I am frightened of the trial and I am frightened of the Council and I am frightened that I will go into that chamber and they will rule against me and they will take me into that house and I will never see the coast again. And I have been working out how to give myself to the house because if I do it willingly then the coast is safe and the pack is safe and you are safe, and I have been sitting on it for three days because I knew what you would say."

Ronan looked at me.

"And what did I say?" he said.

"You said it is not going to happen."

"It is not going to happen."

"You do not know that."

"I know that I will not stand in a chamber and watch them take you." He came up the step. "Fiadh. If the Council rules against you I will not let them have you and I do not care what it costs the coast."

The yard was silent.

"Ronan," I said. "That is the thing I have been frightened of since the north. Not the Council. You."

He stood very still.

"What?"

"You said it in the great chamber. You said it in the corridor and you said it on the cliff and you have said it a hundred times. You will not let them take me. And every time you say it I think, what will he do? What will he do when the Council rules and there is a guard on the door and there is nothing left to do?" I looked at him. "And I do not know the answer and it frightens me more than the house."

Ronan looked at me for a long moment.

"I do not know the answer either," he said.

And through the bond, the door stayed shut.

And down in the harbour, a horn sounded.