Chapter 165: Maeve's Final Betrayal

I sat at the mouth of the cave with the whole of the north below me and the fire behind me and Maeve beside me with her copper curls loose and her hands in her lap.

"Say it again," I said.

"I told him where the spring is," Maeve said.

The camp was quiet. The fire cracked and a wolf at the far end of it stopped talking and the whole of the fold of the hill went still.

"Maeve," I said. "The spring is under the northern seat and the northern seat is full of Council wolves and the whole of the north knows where the spring is."

"The spring is under the northern seat," Maeve said. "But the chain is not. The chain was in the water and the water was in the pool and the pool is under the seat and every wolf in the north knows that." She looked at me. "But there is a second pool."

I turned round.

"What second pool?"

"There is a second pool in the house of the north." Maeve's voice was flat. "It is under the cellar floor where your grandmother was buried. It is the older one and it is the one the first binders used and it has been sealed since before the Council was made. And I told Eamon where it is."

I stood up.

"Maeve," I said.

"I did not know what it was when I told him. He asked me a question about the cellar and I answered it and I did not know." She looked up at me. "And then I sat in a room with a paper and a pen and I worked out what I had done and I have been carrying it since and I have been trying to work out how to say it."

Ronan came out of the cave.

"Fiadh," he said. "What is it?"

"The second pool," I said. "Maeve has told Eamon where the second pool is."

Ronan stood in the mouth of the cave.

"The second pool is in the cellar of the house of the north," he said. "The cellar where she broke the pact."

"The cellar where I broke the pact." I looked at the north below us. "And Eamon has a barrel of powder and a keeper's book and twenty wolves in the glen and he has been trying to destroy the spring since the day he went down the keeper's stair with a taper in his hand."

Maeve stood up.

"Luna," she said.

"Do not." I turned round. "Maeve. I have been in this since the spring and I have been in a cellar and a square and a fire and a border and a bothy and I have been trying to hold a coast together. And every time I have given you a chance you have taken it and done something with it that I did not expect."

Maeve's jaw worked.

"I know," she said.

"I gave you a chance in the mill and you went to the Council. I gave you a chance in the yard and you tore up a paper. I gave you a chance in the bothy and you told me about the trial." I looked at her. "And now I have given you a chance in a camp in the highlands and you have told me you gave a keeper the second pool."

"Luna."

"Maeve. Which one are you?" I said. "Are you the Beta who tore up a paper in a yard and stood in a bothy with a paper in her hand and came up a ridge at midnight? Or are you the Beta who went to Lorcan in the spring and traded a pack for a seat?"

Maeve stood in the mouth of the cave.

"I do not know," she said.

"You do not know."

"I do not know." Her voice cracked. "I have been a Beta for nine years and I have wanted the seat since before Ronan took it and I have done a great many things I am ashamed of. And I have been trying to be something else since the cellar and I have not managed it. Every time I try to do the right thing I do it wrong."

I stood in the mouth of the cave.

"Then you are going to have to do the right thing in front of the whole of the north," I said. "Tomorrow. In that chamber. You are going to stand up and you are going to speak for the founder and you are going to tell the Council what you did."

Maeve looked at me.

"That is not a punishment," she said.

"It is not a punishment. It is a trial." I looked at her. "You are going to stand in that chamber and you are going to say what you did and the Council will decide what to do with you. And if you do it I will stand beside you and I will say that a wolf who tells the truth in a chamber is worth more than a wolf who has never done a wrong thing."

Maeve stood in the mouth of the cave.

"Right," she said. "Tomorrow."

And down in the north, a horn sounded.

It was a Council horn and it came from the northern seat and it came three times and stopped.

Bran came up the fold of the hill with a lantern in his hand and his mended coat and his scarred ear and his face was grey in the light of it.

"Luna," he said. "There is a rider come up from the north gate. He is a Council wolf and he is on his own and he is asking for the founder."

"What does he want?"

Bran looked at me.

"He says the elder Lorcan has taken the Council seat," he said. "And he says the chamber is in ruins and there are three elders under guard and the keeper Eamon is in a cell."

The camp was silent.

"Lorcan," I said.

"Lorcan." Bran looked at me. "Luna. He has taken the seat and he has purged the elders who questioned him and he has put the keeper in a cell. And there is a rider at the north gate asking for the founder."

I stood in the mouth of the cave.

"Then we go down," I said.