The Spring Between Us

Chapter 30: My Wolf Breaks Free

I remember the paper in Ruth's hand. I remember the white of it and the red of the seal.

I remember Silas's voice saying, "Read it to them, Beta. They should hear it from you."

I remember the smell of Hank behind me and the linen on my arm and the sound of the hall breathing.

And then I remember nothing at all.

I woke up on the floor of the hall with my cheek on the boards and my mouth full of blood.

The first thing I knew was the light. It was the wrong light. It was late afternoon and the sun was coming in low through the west windows and painting the floorboards orange, and I had come into that hall in the morning. The second thing I knew was the smell. It was thick in the hall, blood and sweat and torn cloth and the sharp flat smell of fear, and it was not the smell of a pack that had been reading a paper.

The third thing I knew was my arm. The linen was gone. The paste was gone. The mark was there on my forearm, bright as new wire, a crescent with the horns turned up, and it was hot and it was alive and my wolf was awake behind it and she was not pressing at my skin. She was lying low and quiet, the way a dog lies low after it has been kicked.

I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees.

The hall was wrecked. The long table was over on its side. Two benches were broken. There was blood on the boards by the door and blood on the wall by the record room and a warrior's jacket in the middle of the floor with the sleeve torn off. The wolves of the pack were standing along the walls in a ring, and they were looking at me.

Hank was on his knees in the middle of the floor six paces away with his shirt torn and his hand pressed to his shoulder, and Cal was beside him with his arm in a sling that had not been there this morning.

Ruth was not in the hall.

Silas was not in the hall.

I got my feet under me. My legs were not steady but they held. I looked at the ring of wolves along the walls and then I looked at Hank, and I said, "What did I do?"

Nobody answered.

"What did I do?"

Cal got up. His arm was in the sling and his freckled face was grey and he came toward me and stopped two paces away and did not come any closer.

"Luna," he said. "You shifted."

"I cannot shift. Mira put the paste on the mark."

"You shifted." He swallowed. "When Ruth took the paper and held it up and the hall started to shout, you went quiet. Then you went down on one knee and your arm came out from under you and you shifted. You did not fight it. It came out of you all at once, and the paste was not on your arm anymore, it was on the floor, and your wolf was in the hall."

I looked down at my hands. There was blood on them. There was blood under my nails.

"Who did I hurt?"

"Nobody died." Cal said it fast. "Nobody died, Luna. Berik is hurt. He is in Mira's hut and he will keep the arm. Sten has a bite on the leg. Two of the Çöl warriors are cut. Hank is cut on the shoulder. The hall is wrecked and the table is broken and Ruth and the Council man are gone out the back door and the whole pack saw you." He stopped. "You went for Ruth. You went across the table at her and Berik got between you and you took him down and then you went for the back door, and Hank got in front of you and you went for him too, and then you stopped."

"I stopped."

"You stopped." Cal's voice had gone very small. "You stood in the middle of the hall and your eyes went from the door to Hank and back to the door, and then you lay down on the floor and you were a woman again, and then you were asleep."

I stood in the middle of the wrecked hall with my hands at my sides and my pack along the walls looking at me, and I could not remember any of it.

"Where are Ruth and Silas?"

"Gone down the mesa road with the Council clerk and the wagon." Hank got up off his knees and came toward me. His shirt was torn and the cut on his shoulder was bleeding through the cloth but he was walking. "Derya. Your arm."

"The paste failed." I looked at it. The mark was brighter than it had been. The lines of it were silver and raised and the crescent had a new line under it that had not been there in the morning. "Mira said if the bond pushed against the paste it would fail and the mark would come back brighter. He was in the hall. You were in the hall. The bond pushed."

"The paste failed because I stood in the same room as you," Hank said. "That is what happened. She put a wall between your wolf and the bond and I came and leaned on the wall."

"Ruth took the seat." I looked around the hall. "She has the paper and she has the Council's decision and she has gone down that road with the Council man to the inquiry, and I am standing in a broken hall with blood on my hands and a mark on my arm that is brighter than it has ever been." I looked at Hank. "How long until the inquiry?"

"Two days. Sundown in two days at the quarry."

"Then I have two days to find out what happened in this hall and to get to that inquiry before Ruth reads the decision." I turned to the ring of wolves along the walls. "Berik. Where is Berik?"

"Mira's hut," Cal said.

I went out of the hall and across the yard. The pack came out behind me and followed me across the yard at a distance, and the yard was full of women and children and old wolves who had heard the fighting and the howling and who had come out to see. They made a lane for me. I walked down the lane and none of them said anything and none of them would look at me.

Mira's door was open. Mira was at her table with her instruments out and Berik was on the cot with his arm wrapped and his face grey and his jaw set. He looked up when I came in and his mouth moved.

"Luna," he said. "I am sorry about the table."

I stopped in the doorway. "Berik. I bit you."

"You did." He lifted his wrapped arm and looked at it. "You took me down and you bit me and then you turned and went for the back door. I have been a warrior for twelve years and I have never seen a wolf move like that." He let his arm down. "Luna, it was not you. I know it was not you. I have been in the circle with a wolf who lost her head before and it is not the same wolf who comes back. But you should know what the pack is saying in the yard."

"What are they saying?"

"They are saying the Luna cannot hold her wolf and the Luna bit a warrior and the Luna went for the Beta and the Council took the seat. They are saying Ruth was right." Berik looked at me. "And there is one more thing. When you went for the back door, the Council man went out of it ahead of you. He did not run. He walked. And he was smiling."

Mira came around the table. "Derya. Your arm. Let me see."

I held my arm out and she looked at the mark and her face went still. "It is the fourth stage. It will not go further. It will hold here." She looked up at me. "The paste is on the floor of the hall and it will not work again. We cannot cover it. Whatever happens at that inquiry, the healer will see it."

I stood in Mira's hut with my arm out and Berik on the cot and the pack in the yard behind me, and Hank came to the door with his shirt torn and the cut on his shoulder still bleeding, and he looked at Mira and said, "Is there a way to bring her wolf back before two days? She is asleep. She went back into the dark after the hall and I can feel it, and if she goes into that inquiry without her wolf she will not last a minute."

Mira looked at him. Then she looked at me.

"There is one way," she said. "But it is not a thing you will like."