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Frantic, I hung there, unsure of my next move. I had to get myself back through the vent and drop onto the stove. I closed my eyes and tried to steady my breathing. I pictured what I would have to do, holding on to the edges, ducking back though and letting myself lower until I was hanging. When I was steady, letting myself fall back onto the stove. The chair had clattered to the floor when I’d leaped, I thought. Had I heard it? I hoped I wasn’t wrong.

But I knew the chair was not the biggest of my concerns. The real problem was my wrist.

This was going to hurt like a bitch.

I took a few more settling breaths, imagining what I needed to do—and then I did it.

I was through the vent and falling, my hands gripping the roof tightly, and then I hit the end of my arms.

Bright pain made tears spring to my eyes. Then my bad hand lost its grip entirely. I hung by one hand, swinging in the darkness, when I felt my fingers slip.

There was nothing to do but fall.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Roan

Ifound Baer in the meeting house. They were in between discussions about Fenli, and I grabbed him by the arm.

“I need to talk to you,” I said.

He hesitated a moment, then followed me out the door. Eyes watched us as we slipped away, and I tried to look confident. This was my one chance. If I could convince Baer to let Fenli decide her future for herself, I’d earn her a powerful elder to help sway others to her side. I had to make him see reason. Somehow, I had to convince my father to say to hell with tradition and bury his pride long enough to give Fen a chance.

And my odds weren’t good.

He closed the door behind us, and I turned to face him. It was true morning now, and I could hear the sounds of the village coming to life around us, but we were alone in the alley.

“We’re about to start again." The slant in his brows said he was unhappy with my interruption. I hadn’t expected any different.

“They’ll wait for you.” I pushed my hands into my pockets, then pulled them out again. After a moment of awkwardness, I settled on folding them across my chest. I needed to look like someone to be reckoned with. “It’s about Fenli.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“You can’t give her to Runehall.”

He crossed his arms over his chest as well.

“You know,” he said, “the two of you are so adamant that she stay here, yet you don’t do a damn thing to help your cause.”

“She shouldn’t have to earn her place among us by submitting to each and every one of the elders’ wishes.”

His hands shot into the air at that. “She hasn’t submitted to a single one! She cuts her hair, refuses to consummate her marriage, won’t take on a woman’s work,tampers with our maps,” he was livid, “and runs off for weeks at a time to live on an island full of wolves!”

I opened my mouth to defend her, but he plowed on.

“I have tried to keep her here with us. There is not an elder in the clan who has tried to protect her more than I have. I fought for her from the start and even gave my only son to the cause. It was the best I could do, and it waseverythingto me. You were everything to me.” His eyes bore into mine, and all the lines of his body were tense. The confession was like nothing I’d ever heard from him before. I didn’t know what to say. “Since then, I’ve tried to give her time, reassure the elders, keep everyone happy. I’d hoped she’d grow into the clan. Instead, she’s only made things worse. I cannot take us to war for her.”

I stiffened. “Runehall would go to war for her.”

I’d wanted him to argue, to fight me, but instead he sighed, and his body slackened.

Finally, he said, “Then maybe that truly is where she belongs.”

Then he turned. “Go home, Roan,” he said over his shoulder, heading back to join the others. “Your vision is clouded by your heart.”

“Some warriors we turned out to be,” I shoutedafter him.

He closed the door behind himself and left me alone. Clouds were rolling in overhead, darkening the morning sky, and I cursed them, cursed the clan, then, finally, cursed myself. It couldn’t end like this. Baer had his reasons, but his reasons were shit. I didn’t care anymore. To hell with the elders and all their careful considerations. The truth was plain. Fenli had been wronged.