The Spring Between Us

Chapter 84: What the Mark Means

We went up to the road.

The old man sat on his grey horse in the middle of the bridge with six soldiers behind him and a wagon behind the soldiers, and the sun was coming up over the river and the water was going under the bridge and the whole of it was very quiet.

"Luna," he said. "I am going to say a thing to you and then I am going to let you go into that hall and say whatever you like. I am an old man and I have been in the service of the Council for forty years and I have learned that a wolf who is going to lose should be gracious about it." He got down off his horse. "The mark on your arm. The mark on his chest. Do you know what it is?"

"It is a bond mark," I said.

"It is a bond mark and it is a small thing and it is the reason you are going to lose." He came to the end of the bridge and stood on the road with his hands behind his back. "The pair is one wolf in the eyes of the old law. One wolf cannot hold two packs. I have read that line to a Chancellor and I have read it to an envoy and I have read it to you. But there is a thing in the first volume that nobody has ever read out in a hall and it is not about seats. It is about the mark."

I stood on the road with Hank beside me and Ruth behind me and the six soldiers on the bridge.

"Say it," I said.

"The mark is a mirror," the old man said. "It shows what is in the wolf. A wolf who is honest and open and has nothing to hide carries a mark that is bright and steady and that answers to the bond. A wolf who lies and hides and keeps secrets carries a mark that flickers and goes cold and will not hold." He looked at my arm. "Your mark has been cold and grey and flickering since the spring. I have watched it in a hall. It went cold in the Council hall and it went cold in the graveyard and it went cold in the yard when the pack voted against you. And there was a reason for it. Every lie you told in that canyon, every secret you kept, every time you hid the mark and the bond and the truth, the mark went a little colder."

The road was quiet.

"And this morning," he said, "it is bright. It is brighter than I have ever seen it. And I know why. Because last night you told the truth in a cave to a wolf who had every reason to hate you, and because the truth is the only thing that makes the mark hold." He put his hands behind his back. "So I am going to say the thing I came to the bridge to say. The bond is real. The pair is real. The mark is real. And at dawn I am going to stand in that hall and I am going to say so in front of the Chancellor and the whole autumn gathering. And then I am going to say that a pair that is real is a pair that is one wolf, and that one wolf cannot hold two seats, and the Chancellor will rule that the pair must give up one of them." He looked at me. "Which one will you give up, Luna?"

I looked at him.

"Neither," I said.

"Then the Council will take both."

"Then the Council will take both and the canyon will have no Luna and no Alpha and a Council trustee, and the spring will fail and the water will go and the town will dry up and the Council will have a canyon that is worth nothing to anyone." I came down the road. "You have been in this canyon for forty years and you have never understood it. The canyon is not the water and the water is not the Council. The canyon is the packs and the packs are the pair and the pair is the mark. And the mark is a mirror, you said. So look at it." I held up my arm. "It is bright. It has been bright since the cave. And there is a reason for that and it is not the truth I told in a cave."

"What is it then?"

"It is that I stopped lying." I put my arm down. "Not to a Chancellor and not to a hall. To myself. I have been lying to myself since the spring house. I have been telling myself I could do it alone and that I did not need the pack and that the bond was a thing to be hidden and that the mark was a curse. And every one of those lies went into the mark and made it cold." I looked at him. "So you can stand in that hall at dawn and say the pair is one wolf and one wolf cannot hold two seats. And I will stand in that hall and say the pair is one wolf and one wolf can hold two packs because the packs have chosen it and the pact says so and the spring answers to it. And the Chancellor will decide which of us the canyon believes."

The old man looked at me for a long moment.

"You are a remarkable girl," he said. "It is a pity you were born in this canyon."

He turned and got up on his horse and rode back across the bridge with his six soldiers and the wagon, and the sun came up over the river and the light went across the road and the three of us stood on the bank with the horses.

Ruth said, "Luna. He is going to the hall."

"I know."

"And he is going to say the bond is real and the pair is one wolf and the Council will rule against you."

"He is going to say the bond is real and he is going to think that is a knife." I gathered my reins. "But he has just told the whole of it to a wolf who has been lying to herself for a month. And there is a thing about a mirror. It shows you what is in front of it. And what is in front of it this morning is a pair that has stopped hiding."

We rode into the capital as the sun came up.

The yard of the Council hall was full. The whole of the autumn gathering was there, the Council and the merchants and the packs and the town, and the doors were open and the Chancellor was at the table with the twelve around her and the first volume and the Council's own copy side by side in front of her.

The old man was standing in front of the table with his hands folded.

And Nora was at the door with her white hair and her dark brown eyes and her hand on the chain around her neck, and beside her was the Council healer with her case and the clerk with his book.

I came into the hall with Hank and Ruth behind me and the whole of the yard behind them, and the hall went silent.

"Chancellor," I said. "Before this hall rules there is a wolf who has a thing to say and she has been dead for four weeks and she is standing behind me."

The hall turned.

Ruth came forward with her grey jacket buttoned and her auburn hair pinned up and her grey eyes steady, and she stopped in front of the table and put her hands behind her back.

"Chancellor," she said. "My name is Ruth. I was the Beta of the Kızıltaş pack. I killed the Luna's mother and I put the wolfsbane in her cup and I hired the rogue and I stood at the edge of the rim while it was done. And I am here to say it in front of the whole Council."

The hall went loud.