Chapter 76: The Founder's Heir

Soren did not let her speak.

"The binder will be heard in due course," he said. "But before the Council hears a binder who has broken her oath, the Council will establish what the healer is." He turned to the thin wolf on his right. "Elder Rannoch. You have the record of the bloodline."

The thin wolf stood up with a book in his hands. It was a big book, bound in cracked brown leather, and it was so old that the boards had warped and the corners had been mended with brass.

"The Council has kept a record of the founder's bloodline for two hundred years," he said. "It is not a complete record. It was not kept in one place and it was not kept by one hand. But there is a list of names and there is a list of descriptions and there is a portrait."

The chamber was very still. I could hear the wind at the windows and the sound of somebody in the back row breathing through their mouth.

"There is a portrait in this book of a wolf of the founder's blood who came before the Council a hundred and twenty years ago," Rannoch said. "She was called Mairead and she was a healer and she had golden hair and green eyes and she was a wolf of the gold."

He turned the book round and held it up.

"The healer standing before this Council has golden hair and green eyes and she has shifted into a gold wolf in front of four witnesses on the north mountain. I have compared the portrait in this book with the healer's own face and I have done it in this chamber in front of the Council."

The page was old and the ink had gone brown and the drawing was stiff and flat the way old drawings are, all hard lines and no shading. But the face in it had golden hair and green eyes and strong brows and a mouth that was full and set.

It was my face.

I heard the chamber go up behind me. I heard Nessa say something and Maeve say something to Colm and somebody in the back row swear. I did not turn round. I looked at the drawing and the drawing looked back at me, and my hands went cold.

"That is not proof," I said.

The chamber went quiet.

"It is a drawing in a book and it was drawn a hundred and twenty years ago and it looks like me because half the wolves on the western coast have golden hair and green eyes." I looked at Rannoch. "I want to see the rest of the page."

Rannoch looked at Soren.

"Give her the book," Soren said.

Rannoch came round the table and put the book in my hands.

The page had the drawing at the top and the writing underneath, and the writing was in the old script and it had been copied out by a clerk a long time ago in a hand that was careful and small.

It said that Mairead, healer, of the founder's blood, had come before the Council in the year of the great sickness and had asked for leave to bond with a wolf of the northern packs. The Council had refused the leave. And Mairead had bonded anyway and had been taken into the custody of the Council for the protection of the bloodline and had died in custody six months later.

I read it twice.

I looked up.

"She died in custody," I said. "A hundred and twenty years ago. She asked for leave to marry and the Council refused it and she did it anyway and they put her in a cell and she died there."

The chamber was silent.

"There is no cause of death in this book," I said. "There is no record of a trial and no record of a sentence. There is a name and a refusal and a cell and six months and a line at the bottom that says the matter is closed." I turned the book round and held it up so the chamber could see the page. "That is the law you are asking this Council to apply today. That is what it does. It does not protect the bloodline. It protects the Council from the bloodline."

Soren sat with his hands folded.

"The law is the law, healer," he said. "And you are the heir of the founder's line and you are standing in this chamber with a mark on your chest that was made without the Council's leave. The law is clear. The bond is void and you will be taken into custody."

"You will not take her."

It was Ronan. He had stepped in front of me with his shoulders back and his hands at his sides.

"Alpha," Soren said. "You are already charged with an unlawful bond. Do not add to it."

"I am not adding to it. I am telling you what will happen if you lay a hand on my mate in this chamber." Ronan looked at the five elders one by one. "There are nine Blackthorn wolves in the front row and twenty two in the market and a founder wolf standing behind me. And there is a thing I have not told this Council."

"And what is that?"

"The false bond is still in the box," Ronan said. "And the box is in this house and it has a false bond in it that was made by a binder of this Council and put on an Alpha without his leave. And if this Council takes my mate into custody I will open that box in this chamber and let every elder in this room smell what is inside it."

The chamber went up.

It went up in a way I had not heard before. The benches scraped and somebody shouted and the thin wolf on Soren's right half rose out of his chair and the grey wolf with the broken nose said something short and hard that I could not hear.

Soren's hands came off the table and closed on the edge of it, and for the first time all day the old man's face changed. It was not anger. It was something colder and quicker than anger, and it went across his face and was gone.

"You would not dare," he said.

"Try me," Ronan said.

And in the back of my head, behind the door, the wolf stood up and pushed. Not at the door this time. It pushed at me.

Let me out, it said. Let me out and I will tell them.

I put my hand flat on the table.

"Elder Soren," I said. "There is a thing you have not asked me and I am going to tell you anyway."

He looked at me.

"Ask me what the ritual is called," I said.