Bound to a Dying Man의 모든 챕터: 챕터 11 - 챕터 20

The rogues on the north ridge did not come down. They stood on the skyline until the light went, three shapes against the grey, and twice more that ugly half howl came across the water. Then they were gone, and the warriors who went up to meet them found nothing but tracks in the wet heather and a dead hare laid out on a stone with its throat cut clean.Ronan did not sleep that night. I know because I did not either, and the pull in my chest kept me company, steady as a clock.By the third morning I had had enough of the house. I told Maeve I was going to gather gorse and thyme on the cliffs, and I took my basket and walked north along the headland with the wind coming off the Atlantic and the gulls screaming over the rocks.The cliff path is a good place to think. There is nothing up there but grass and stone and the sea going on and on, and the noise of it fills your head so full that you can hear yourself inside it.I sat down on a flat rock with my basket beside me and put my hand

The door opened and it was Nessa, and I had the letter in my hand and no time to put it back.She stood in the doorway with a basket of washing on her hip and her mouth open, and she looked at the letter, and then at the box, and then at me."You went through Maeve's letters," she said."I did.""She will skin you.""She will try." I held up the letter. "Nessa. Come in and shut the door."She came in and shut the door, and I showed her the line at the bottom. She read it slowly, moving her lips, and then she looked up at me."That is the same line," she said. "The one the clerk said was in your mother's file.""Word for word.""That cannot be a coincidence.""No." I put the letter back in the box, in the right place, and closed the clasp. "It cannot. But I cannot take this letter to the Alpha, because if I do Maeve will know I have been in her room and she will have the box locked by supper, and I will have lost my only copy of the one piece of paper that links my mother to the Counci

Eithne did not answer my question. She got up and went to the shelf behind her desk and pulled down a box tied with string, and her hands were not steady on the knot."I am going to tell you something," she said, "and then you are going to leave this house and not come back for three days. Do you understand?""No.""Good. You are not a fool, then." She set the box on the desk. "The line at the bottom of the page is not a Council line. It is not written by any clerk and it is not in any rule book. It is put there by one hand, on certain papers, and that hand belongs to a man who has been sitting on the Council for forty years and who has never once been challenged for his seat.""Soren," I said.Eithne's head came up. "Where did you hear that name?""I have not heard it. I guessed. There is a master behind Lorcan and Lorcan is too careful to be the top of anything." I sat down in the chair opposite her without being asked. "Eithne. What is in that box?""My copies." She untied the stri

The moon was full that night, and it pulled at the whole house like a hand on a rope.Nobody slept well. I heard the young wolves moving about in the dormitory and the boards creaking and once a muffled argument about a window. The moon does that. It gets into the blood and it does not let go until the sky goes grey.I gave up around eleven and put my coat on and went down the back stairs and out, and the air hit me cold and clean and I filled my lungs with it.The cliffs were white. The moon had come up over the sea and laid a wide silver road across the water, and the grass at the top of the headland looked like frost. I walked north along the path with my hands in my pockets and the wind at my back, and when I got to the flat rock I sat down on it and looked at the sea.I heard him before I saw him. Boots on the turf, uneven, careful."You should be asleep," I said, without turning."I could say the same to you." Ronan came up beside the rock and stood there with his hands in his c

The woman in the green scarf was younger than I had expected. Thirty, maybe a year or two more, with dark hair pinned up and a narrow clever face and a mouth that was already smiling before she had finished getting out of the car."Elara," Ronan said. His voice had gone flat and cold. "You are not welcome here.""I am never welcome anywhere. It is one of the burdens of my profession." She looked at me, and her eyes went over my coat and my boots and the little kit in my hand. "And this is the healer. Fiadh. I have heard a great deal about you.""From whom?""From everyone. You have been in this pack eight days and you have already found the false bond, the poisoned tea and the spiral on the beach. That is a good week's work." She leaned back against the car. "I am here to help you.""You put a mark on his chest that is killing him.""I put a mark on his chest that was supposed to save his pack." Elara's smile did not move. "It has done that. The tithe was forgiven. The boats were repa