Chapter 172: The Healer's Oath

The horn was a Council horn and it came from the square and it was calling the north to the trial.

I stood in the room at the top of the east stair with the plans on the table and Padraig and Ronan and I did not go down.

"Padraig," I said. "The healer's oath. Say it to me."

Padraig looked at me.

"Healer," he said. "You have taken that oath once in your life and you took it in a rented room in Galway with your mother's hand on your head."

"I know. Say it again."

Padraig put his stick against the table.

"I will keep the wolf before me," he said. "I will keep the pack behind me. I will keep my hands clean and my word true and I will not leave a wolf in the dark while there is breath in me to bring a light."

I stood in the room.

"I will keep the wolf before me," I said. "I will keep the pack behind me. I will keep my hands clean and my word true and I will not leave a wolf in the dark while there is breath in me to bring a light."

Padraig looked at me.

"Healer," he said. "That is the oath of a healer. And you are taking it again as a Luna and there is a thing you have to add to it."

"What thing?"

"A Luna binds herself to the pack's safety before her own." Padraig looked at me. "That is not in the healer's oath. It is in the old words for a Luna and it has not been said in the north in a hundred years."

"Say it."

Padraig said it.

It was four lines and it was in the old tongue and then it was in English and the English was this: I bind myself to the pack before myself. I bind myself to the coast before the chair. I bind myself to the wolf beside me before the mark on my chest. And I will not be a Luna who is kept. I will be a Luna who is given.

I stood in the room.

"I bind myself to the pack before myself," I said. "I bind myself to the coast before the chair. I bind myself to the wolf beside me before the mark on my chest. And I will not be a Luna who is kept. I will be a Luna who is given."

The room was quiet.

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

"Fiadh," he said.

"Ronan."

"You have just bound yourself to a pack and a coast and a wolf in a room at the top of a stair in the northern seat with a trial going on in the square below." He came and stood in front of me. "And you have not once asked me what I bind myself to."

"What do you bind yourself to?"

He put his hands on my face.

"I bind myself to the wolf who got off a bus in the rain and told a Council envoy she would not give him her silence." He looked at me. "I bind myself to the healer who sewed up eleven wolves in one night and did not ask which side they were on. I bind myself to the Luna who broke a chain in a cellar and gave her hair for it and gave a line away in a yard in the north."

I stood in the room.

"Ronan," I said.

"And I bind myself to the coast," he said. "And to the pack. And to the twelve and the seven and the nineteen and the thirty one. And I am not going to be an Alpha who is kept. I am going to be an Alpha who is given."

I put my hands on his face.

"Right then," I said.

And then I kissed him.

The horn sounded again in the square.

We went down.

The great chamber of the northern seat was full. It was fuller than it had been for the trial in the summer and it was fuller than it had been for the reading. There were wolves in the gallery and wolves in the aisles and wolves in the doorway and there were wolves in the square outside who could not get in.

The five chairs at the table had four wolves in them and one empty chair.

Rannoch was in the middle.

Ilsa was on his left.

The grey wolf with the broken nose was on his right and the woman with the short dark hair was beside him and the fifth chair was empty.

Lorcan was standing at the side of the chamber with two Council guards behind him and a paper in his hand.

Maeve was standing in the middle of the floor.

"The Council is in session," Rannoch said. His voice was not steady. "The matter before us is the charge of the breaking of the chain and the three deaths that came of it. The Luna of the Blackthorn Pack will answer."

I came forward.

"Elders," I said. "I broke the chain in the cellar of the house of the north with a priestess and a staff and a pool of water and I did it without a vote and without a word to the Council of Alphas. And three wolves died of it."

The chamber was silent.

"Say why," Rannoch said.

"Because a keeper was going to burn the spring and there was a barrel of powder in the chamber under the northern seat and a taper in his hand." I looked at the five chairs. "And because there were thirty one wolves in the north who had been bound without their leave and did not know it and there was a house on the hill with nineteen children in it and there was a woman in a room at the top who had been there for seventy years."

The chamber was silent.

"And there is a thing I have to say to this Council and I am going to say it once," I said. "I am not going to ask for mercy. I am going to ask for the record."

Rannoch looked at me.

"What record?"

"The record of the nineteen," I said. "The names of every wolf who was taken and every wolf who was bound and every wolf who died of it. I want it written down and I want it read out in this chamber and I want it kept in the archive where any wolf in the north can walk in and read it."

The chamber went up.

And when it came down, Rannoch stood up.

"The Council will vote," he said.

And down in the square, a horn sounded.