Chapter 79: Ronan's Collapse

I pulled the thread into myself.

I do not know how to explain what that means. I had my hands on the box and the grey rope in my fingers and the other end of it tied to Ronan's heart, and instead of pulling it out of him and into the box I pulled it out of him and into me.

It went in through my hands and up my arms and into my chest, and it was cold, and it hurt the way a burn hurts.

Ronan came off his feet.

He went backwards and hit the floor of the chamber and his head cracked on the boards and he did not move.

The chamber went up.

I went down on my knees beside him with the box still in my hands and the grey rope in my chest, and I got my hand on his face.

"Ronan. Ronan."

He was not breathing.

I got my ear to his chest and there was nothing. I got my hands on his chest and pushed, once, twice, the way I had been taught to do it, and there was nothing, and I pushed again.

"Healer," Padraig was beside me. "Fiadh. His heart."

"I know his heart. I am working."

"He is not breathing."

"I know he is not breathing." I got my hands flat on his chest and pushed and pushed and the tears were coming down my face and I did not stop. "Ronan. Breathe. Breathe, you fool, you promised me you would stand up in this chamber."

The chamber was very quiet.

I heard Soren's voice.

"The bond is broken," he said. "The Alpha is dead. The Council will proceed."

I got up.

I got up off the floor of the Council chamber with my hands still wet from the salve and I turned round and I looked at the five elders.

"You will not proceed," I said. "You will sit down and you will be quiet and you will let me work."

Soren's mouth came open.

I turned my back on him.

I got down on my knees beside Ronan and I put my hands on his chest and I pushed and I counted and I pushed, and I said the words my mother had taught me, the old ones for a wolf whose heart has stopped, and the wolf in my chest came up and put its head back and howled.

It was not a sound that came out of my mouth. It came out of the bond, and it went through the chamber, and every wolf in that room heard it.

Ronan's chest moved.

It was a small movement and it was not a breath and I put my hand flat on it.

"Again," I said. "Come on. Again."

His chest moved again.

His eyes came open.

He looked up at me and his eyes were not focused and his mouth was open and he was trying to breathe and it was not working.

"Fiadh."

"I am here."

"Can't breathe."

"I know. I know." I got my arm under his shoulders and lifted him and got him sitting up, and he coughed and his chest heaved and then he took a breath. A real one. It went in and it stayed in.

I held him.

I sat on the floor of the Council chamber with my mate in my arms and my hand on his chest and the whole of the Council watching me, and I did not say a word to any of them for a long time.

Padraig came and knelt down beside us.

"His heart is going," he said. "It is going hard and it is not steady. He needs a bed and he needs warmth and he needs someone to watch him until morning."

I looked up at the elders.

"He needs a room," I said. "He needs a bed in this house and a fire and a door that I can shut. And if this Council will not give me one I will carry him down those stairs and put him on the table in the rented house and I will do it with the whole of the market watching."

Ilsa stood up.

"Give them a room," she said. "Give them the room at the top of the stairs and put a fire in it and send for the healer's bags."

Soren did not say a word.

Ilsa looked at him.

"Elder," she said. "You have lost the vote and you have lost the chamber and you have lost the record. There is a false bond on the table and a list of names and the granddaughter I was told died of the sickness. If you say another word in this chamber today I will call for a vote on your seat before the sun goes down."

Soren sat with his hands flat on the table.

He said nothing at all.

Ilsa turned to me.

"Healer," she said. "Take him up."

I got my arm under Ronan's shoulders and Padraig got his other arm and we lifted him.

"Fiadh," Ronan said. His voice was a scrape. "The box."

"It is on the table."

"The bond."

"It is out. It is in me. It is not in you." I looked down at him. "It is out and it is in me and I am going to work out what to do about that when you can breathe without me holding you up."

We went up the stairs of the Council house with the whole chamber watching us and the Blackthorn wolves coming up behind us.

At the top of the stairs there was a door and behind the door there was a room with a fire and a bed in it.

We put Ronan on the bed.

Oisin went out into the corridor and stood in front of the door with his knife in his hand and did not let anyone through it, and Padraig went down to the mill for the bags, and Nessa came in with an armful of blankets.

I sat down on the edge of the bed with my hand on Ronan's chest.

And then I looked down at my own hands, and the grey rope was still there, wound round my wrists and my fingers like a thread of smoke that would not blow away.