Chapter 158: Nessa's Plea

I was four days north of the Blackthorn border and I was in a cove on the north coast waiting for the wind to turn when Nessa found me.

She came down the beach at dusk with her skirts held up and her boots in her hand and her hair coming out of its tie, and she had been walking for two days. There was a cut on her forehead and mud to her knees and she was so tired she could barely stand.

"Healer," she said. "Luna."

"Nessa." I got up off the rock. "What are you doing here?"

"I came on the boat with Bran's wolves and I got off at the wrong harbour and I have been walking since." She sat down on the shingle and put her boots on and her hands were shaking. "I have been walking for two days and I have not slept and I have a thing to tell you and I have been rehearsing it all the way and now I cannot remember any of it."

"Breathe," I said.

She breathed.

"Ronan has stopped eating," she said.

I stood on the shingle.

"Say that again," I said.

"He has stopped eating. It has been four days since you went north and he has been sitting in the hall and he has not eaten and he has barely spoken. And on the second day he was in the hall and the pack came at him and there were nine of them and they said, what are we going to do about it. And on the third day Maeve came in and told him the truth and he laughed and he said, four wolves and a boat and the last three days." Nessa looked up at me. "And then he went up to his room and he has not come down."

I sat down on the shingle beside her.

"Nessa," I said. "What did Maeve say to him?"

"She said he was going north. She said he had been going north in his head since the border stone and he was not going to stand in that house for eleven days while you stood in a Council chamber on your own." Nessa wiped her face. "And then she said he was going to take four wolves and not thirty and he was going to leave the pack with a Beta and he was going to do it in the last three days when there was no time for the Council to send wolves to the coast."

I sat on the shingle.

"He is going to come north," I said.

"He is going to come north." Nessa looked at me. "But he is not eating and he is barely speaking and he has been sitting in his room for a day and a half and the door is shut and nobody goes in but Padraig."

I looked at the sea.

"Padraig is with me," I said.

Nessa stared at me.

"Padraig went south," she said. "He went south the day after you left and he came back to the pack house and he has been in that room with the Alpha every day since. And then he went north on a boat two days ago and he said he was going to the northern isles."

"Padraig is not in the northern isles," I said. "Padraig is with me. He has been with me since the border. He is asleep in the boat at this moment."

Nessa's face went white.

"Then who is in the room with the Alpha?" she said.

I stood up.

"Nessa," I said. "Get your boots on. We are going back."

We went back at dawn.

The wind had turned in the night and Oisin had the sail up before the sun was over the headland, and we went south along the coast with the whole of the north going by on our right and Bran's forty wolves on the shore behind us.

It took two days.

We came into the Blackthorn harbour at dusk on the second day and the harbour was quiet and the pack house was standing and the roof had been mended in the north corner and there was a light in the kitchen.

And there was a Council boat at the pier.

I got off the boat and went up the hill.

The yard was empty and the kitchen was empty and the hall was empty and there was a wolf sitting at the long table with a paper in front of him and a lamp and a pen.

It was the rider. The one with the Council flag and the writ. He was sitting at the table in the hall of the Blackthorn house with a paper in front of him and a pen in his hand and he was writing.

"Where is the Alpha?" I said.

The rider looked up.

"Luna," he said. "You are not supposed to be in this territory."

"Where is the Alpha?"

The rider put the pen down.

"He is in the room at the top of the stairs," he said. "And there is a wolf with him."

"Who?"

The rider looked at the paper in front of him.

"The keeper Eamon," he said.

I went up the stairs.

The door of the Alpha's room was shut and there was a lamp behind it and there was a voice coming through it, low and steady, the voice of a wolf reading something out loud.

I put my hand on the door and opened it.

The room smelled of a fire that had not been fed and a wolf who had not washed. The shutters were closed and the lamp was on the table and the bed had not been made.

Ronan was sitting on the edge of the bed with his hands in his lap and his face grey and his eyes on the floor.

And Eamon was sitting on the chair by the fire with a book in his hands.

"Luna," Eamon said. "You are early."

I stood in the doorway.

"Get away from him," I said.

Eamon did not move.

"I am reading to him," he said. "It is a book about the founder's line. He has not been eating and he has not been speaking and I have been reading to him for two days and it has been very restful for both of us."

I looked at Ronan.

"Ronan," I said.

He did not lift his head.

"Ronan. Look at me."

And down in the yard, a horn sounded.