Chapter 163: The Ninth Love Scene

The horn was a Council horn and it came from the bottom of the glen.

Maeve was on her feet.

"That will be the keeper," she said. "He has been on this road since the harbour. He knew you would come to the bothy."

"How did he know?"

"Because I told him." Maeve's jaw worked. "I have been in the north for three days and I have been in a room with Eamon and a paper and a pen and he has been asking me where the founder would go to ground. And I told him the bothy in the glen because I knew you would not go there."

I stood in the doorway.

"Maeve," I said.

"I have been a fool since the spring and I have been trying to be something else since the cellar and I am not going to be a fool again." She came across the bothy. "The keeper is in the glen with twenty wolves and he has a paper and a warrant and he is going to take you north. And I have been sitting in this bothy for two days with a paper in my hand that I have not shown anyone."

"What paper?"

Maeve held it up.

"It is a letter from the Council of Alphas," she said. "It is signed by three elders and it says the trial of the founder is moved. It is not in three days. It is tomorrow at noon."

The bothy was silent.

"Tomorrow," I said.

"Tomorrow at noon in the great chamber." Maeve looked at me. "And there is a second thing in the letter. It says the trial will be held in front of the full Council and the whole of the north and the wolf who will speak for the founder is the Beta of the Blackthorn Pack."

I stood in the doorway.

"You," I said.

"Me." Maeve's jaw worked. "I have been Beta of this pack for nine years and I have wanted the seat since before Ronan took it and I have been a fool and a coward and a wolf who wanted a thing more than she wanted to be honest. And I am going to stand in that chamber tomorrow and I am going to speak for the founder."

The horn sounded again.

"Then we go north tonight," I said.

"Luna. The keeper has twenty wolves in the glen and he is between us and the coast."

I turned round.

"Oisin," I said. "The back of the bothy. Is there a way out?"

"There is a stream behind the bothy and a gully above it and it goes up to the ridge," Oisin said. "It is a climb and it is dark and it is not a way a wolf with twenty wolves behind him would choose."

"Then we choose it." I picked up my pack. "Ronan. Padraig. Maeve."

Ronan did not move.

"Fiadh," he said.

"Ronan."

"I have been in a bothy with you before." He came and stood in front of me. "And I have been in a glen with twenty wolves in it and I have been on the run from a Council and I have been in a cellar and a square and a fire. And I am going to say a thing now that I should have said in the yard before you walked to the border."

"Say it."

"I am sorry." He put his hands on my face. "I am sorry for the vote in the chamber. I am sorry for the cliff and the door shutting and the two nights in a chair and the yard where I told my own pack I did not know what to say. I have been a coward and a fool and I have been a wolf who stopped eating because a book told him to, and you have been carrying a coast and a line and a bond on your own since the spring."

I stood in the bothy.

"Ronan," I said.

"And I am not going to do it again." He looked at me. "Whatever happens tomorrow. Whatever the Council says. Whether you are a founder or a rogue or a healer with a case of tins. I am going to be standing beside you and I am not going to be silent."

I put my hands on his face.

"Right then," I said.

And then I kissed him.

It was not like the bothy in the summer. It was not like the cliff and it was not like the night before the exile. It was the kiss of two wolves who had been apart and had been silent and had been frightened and had come back to each other in a bothy in a glen with a Council horn going in the valley below.

He pulled back.

"Fiadh," he said. "There are twenty wolves in the glen."

"I know."

"And a keeper with a warrant."

"I know."

"And Maeve is standing by the door with a paper in her hand and Padraig is by the hearth with his stick."

"I know." I got my hand into his hair. "Ronan. I have been in a fire and a cellar and a siege and a Council chamber and a border stone and a cliff. And I have not had an hour with my mate since the northern seat."

Ronan looked at me.

"An hour," he said.

"An hour."

He turned round.

"Maeve," he said. "Padraig. Oisin. Get to the back of the bothy and keep watch on the gully and do not come in for an hour."

Maeve looked at him.

"An hour," she said.

"An hour."

They went out.

Ronan shut the door.

And then he turned round and crossed the bothy and put his hands on my face.

I do not have the words for the rest of it. I have been a healer for ten years and I have spent my life writing things down plainly and this is the one thing I cannot write plainly. What I can say is that it was the first time since the northern seat that there was nothing between us at all. No Council and no border and no keeper and no book. There was a hearth and a stack of peat and a bed of planks along the wall and a mate who had been silent for a fortnight.

He kept saying my name. I kept saying his. And at some point in the middle of it I started to cry and he stopped and lifted his head and looked at me.

"What is it?" he said.

"Nothing. It is nothing." I got my hand on his face. "It is just that I have been on my own since the border stone and I have been telling myself I was not."

He put his forehead against mine.

"You were not," he said.

The hour went by.

And when it was over we lay on the planks in the dark with the quilt over us and his arm under my head and the bothy warm for the first time since we came in.

"Ronan," I said.

"Hm."

"Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow." He turned his head. "Fiadh. Whatever happens tomorrow, I am going to be standing beside you."

And through the bond, warm and steady and clear, I felt him.

And outside the bothy, in the glen, a horn sounded.