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Fitting, I decided. I sat on the bank, pulled my knees to my chest, and watched the rings spread across the surface of the deep.

He did follow, though, the asshole. He came up beside me. I could see his boots in my side vision. I assumed he had a shirt on now as well.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“I think you’re misunderstanding me,” he started.

And I couldn’t bear another word, so great was my humiliation. “I’m not,” I assured him. “I just got carried away. I don’t want to be stuck with you either. I was just being stupid.”

“Ouch,” he breathed. “Let me down gently, will you?”

“What?” I squinted into the rain to see him.

But his eyes caught on something out in the water, and his expression shifted.

I turned to look. There, coming across the water for us, was a canoe.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Roan

It was all my fault. I hadn’t meant to lead them to the island, but my intentions didn’t matter. There they were.

And there was Fenli.

That wasn’t even the worst of it. As Baer and Thaas ran their canoe up along the shore and Baer started his tirade, ripping into me for having left, having had them all out searching for me for days, Thaas saw it. Tracks. Wolf tracks, there in the mud, lit up by the light of the moon. Unmistakable. And I watched as the hunter sparked to life in him.

I’d ruinedeverything.

Fenli stood in the rain, eyes unfocused, stone still. Baer scolded me more. That was how the truth came out, and I realized all my stupid mistakes.

Fenli had stolen a dead man’s canoe, and no one had noticed.

I’d stolen the canoe of a fisherman, which was how they knew to look to the water in their search.

She’d stuck to building small fires to cook on.

I’d insisted on building big fires because I knew she liked to be warm, sending plumes of smoke into the sky and not thinking twice about it.

She’d hid her canoe under the cover of ferns.

I’d headed after her in a rush, leaving mine visible to all.

“And you,” Baer said, turning his gaze to her when he’d had enough of me. I was ready to defend her, to force his attention back, but that didn’t happen. He said, “Runehall’s are in the village. They arrived yesterday, and you’ve caused a world of grief being gone.”

I heard the words but didn’t want to believe them. “Runehall’s?”

Baer nodded, and Fen squeezed her eyes shut.

“Well, we shouldn’t bring her back. We should hide her. Keep her here.”

“No,” Baer said, his voice like thunder. “The clans are upset. Our relationship with that clan is the worst it’s been in my time and my father’s time before me. We face this head on. We resolve the issue for the good of the clans.”

“That’s bullshit,” I said, and I was opening my mouth to say a lot more when Fen broke from my line of vision. I watched as she walked to the ferns and hauled her canoe out, dragging it down to the water’s edge.

I glared at Baer, daring him to follow, then went to join her. For a moment, my attention caught on a large cedar nearby, words etched into its side, but I looked away. Drawing up by her side, I spoke in a hush.

“What are you doing?”