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Chapter Twenty-Four

Roan

B aer in the meeting house when I found him and pulled him out the side door, into the back alley so we could speak in private.

“I don’t have time for this,” he said.

“You’ll make the time.” I tried not to regret my boldness.

Why do you try so hard to make that man happy?

Fen’s words had taken up too much space in my mind, and I couldn’t seem to shake them.

She’d been wrong—Baer’s concerns had had nothing to do with my actions the day her uncle had come to the village, following her like her own shadow, never letting her out of my sight.

That had been my own worry and protectiveness, to hell with Baer’s.

But she’d been right, too. I had been trying to make Baer happy since I was a snot-nosed boy half a world away from home and missing my mother.

But not today.

Baer narrowed his eyes but didn’t argue. I took a breath and got right to it.

“This clan is thinking with its ass. We’re making enemies of our own, and for what? To make Runehall’s happy? Fenli is not a risk to us, and we need to stop thinking of her like she is.”

“It’s not that simple. ”

“Is it not? Ten years ago, our elders committed to keeping Fen and Indi here.”

He cut me off. “We did, and you were the solution. Now look where that’s gotten us. She won’t even accept you, and you’re too dumb to see her rejection for what it is.”

“It was a lousy solution!”

“It was the only one we had.”

I raised my chin. “I don’t believe that.”

He scoffed at my words. “Well, do enlighten me on how better we could have handled it. In the meantime, I’ll be in there,” his finger jutted to the door, “trying to solve actual problems.”

I grabbed his arm when he tried to leave, and he looked down at the hand I dared to lay on him.

“This clan treats Fenli with no respect, but it’s more than that. It’s not just her. It’s Esska, too. It’s anyone who wants to do anything that doesn’t fall neatly into the perimeters of our traditions.”

I’d never spoken out against my father and our clan like this before, and it gave me a kind of heady rush. I didn’t think before I said my next words.

“Fenli makes maps, you know. Meticulous, accurate maps. That’s what she wants to do. Not care for the birds or dye the fabrics. And Esska! She wants to hunt. I’ve been teaching her, and she’s damn good—”

He ripped his arm from my grip.

“You what?”

“This clan needs to change, to allow people to take interest in more than what they’re assigned.”

“Fool,” he spat. “You’re a damn fool. We have traditions for a reason, and if you drug me out here because you imagined you were doing those girls a favor, you were mistaken. When are you going to wake up to the world and stop dreaming this nonsense?”

It was then that it dawned on me what I’d done, the secrets I’d divulged. My heart sank.

“Don’t follow me into this hall,” he said. “And never repeat those words you just told me again.”

I didn’t grab for his arm this time. He went back to the others, and I stood in the alley alone.

Shit .

I left, needing to talk to Esska or Fenli or both of them, but it was Ess I came across first. She was in front of the dye house, talking to some of her friends, and she frowned when she saw me.

“What is it?” she asked as I came closer.

I glanced at her friends, then back at her.

“Can I talk with you?”

She gestured to the narrow path that wound between structures and out to the brush, and I followed her down it. I wondered what I’d tell her—how I’d tell her—and when she turned back to hear what I had to say, I still didn’t have an answer.

“I’ve made a mistake.”

“I figured that,” she said. “What did you do?”

“I told Baer.”

She shook her head, not understanding. “Told him what?”

“I told Baer too much. I didn’t mean to. I was angry, and I hate the way this clan forces people to—”

“Roan,” she said, interrupting me. I could see on her face that she knew what I’d done, but she asked me anyway. She said the words slowly, like she was hoping she was wrong. “What did you tell Baer? ”

I hesitated, but there was no way out of this. I couldn’t take it back, and Ess needed to hear it from me.

“I told him about Fenli’s map making. And about your hunting.”

She screwed her eyes shut, her jaw tight. “You promised,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry. I know. I was trying to help.”

“Help? I’m not ready to prove myself yet. And they’ll take all Fenli’s things! She’s already in enough trouble as it is. Are you honestly trying to make everything worse?”

One hand was on her head and the other gestured wildly. Her words felt like harsh blows, bearing witness to my foolishness and my shame.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I was trying to stand up for you two. I thought if Baer could understand—”

“If only you could understand. You are na?ve, brother. This clan works against anyone who would imagine a different path forward, and our secrecy is our greatest advantage. It’s all we have.”

“But you want to be a hunter. With the clan, not in secret.”

“And I’m not ready for that, am I? You think they’ll let me try to learn?

” She turned away from me, shaking her head like she couldn’t believe how stupid I was.

“My only hope was to really prove myself, when I was ready. One shot.” She stopped and her shoulders, which had been high with tension, fell as she sighed.

“Even that was just a dream,” she said, quieter.

“Ess, I’ll fix this.”

“Just stop,” she turned back to face me. “Don’t try to help now, and don’t pretend like you thought you were helping when you told my secrets.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but she lifted a hand, silencing me.

“You finally stood up to Baer, but who did you risk? Not yourself.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Why didn’t you tell Baer about how the clan has held you back?

A marriage you didn’t ask for. Being kept in the Hinterlands for ten long years when all you wanted was to go home.

You traded your friends to make Baer happy.

Dropped Jory like a sack of wet linens—didn’t even look back—and picked up with Thaas because you took the hint.

Thaas! Dull, boring Thaas who has the personality of a slug! ”

“That’s—”

“But you didn’t bring up any of that, did you? You went to Baer on our behalf, and you kept your own business out of it.” A long pause stretched out between us. “Well, thanks for nothing.”

She walked past me, her shoulder striking mine as she left down the narrow path. If I could have thought of anything to say, I would have said it, but there was nothing that could help mend what I’d done.

If that had been Esska’s reaction, how much worse would Fenli’s be? I wished to the gods I could go on without telling her, but I knew what I had to do. I was an idiot, but I wouldn’t be a cad. I resigned myself to the hell she’d raise.

Then I struck out to find her.

Finding Fenli proved much harder. I often wondered if she’d been drawn to map making so she could better find places to hide. Explore to her heart’s content, find a hide-away all to herself, then strike it from the maps so she could keep it all to herself. It sounded like something she would do.

And like something I wished I could do.

In the end, she was out by the surf, leaning up against a boulder and watching the waves. In another hour or so the sun would be setting over the ocean, coloring the sky. For now, it was blue with a wash of fine clouds.

“There you are,” I said, coming alongside her and taking a seat. “You haven’t talked to Ess this evening, have you?”

She shook her head, still looking out over the horizon.

I nodded. “I don’t know how to tell you this, so I’m just going to say it.” That got her attention. She looked at me for the first time since I’d joined her. “I told Baer about your mapping. I was trying to help, but—but I made a terrible mistake.”

She stared—not saying a word—for too many agonizing moments. I waited for the floodgates to break. I braced myself for it. But then her eyes slid away, back to the sea, and she sighed.

“Why in the world would you think that was helpful?”

“I—” I faltered. “I don’t know. I was trying to tell Baer that he was wrong about you, about more than just you, but…,”

I trailed off, and Fenli didn’t fill the space.

“I made things worse.” I thought about what would happen next. They’d come for her things. All her materials, her maps, taken away. Rumors would spread. Life for her would be even harder. “Gods, Fen. I’m so sorry.”

She rose to her feet and dusted the dirt from her palms, wincing. I snatched her wrist and held her injured hand between us.

“You got your stitches out?”

“This morning.”

“Damn, I meant to be there with you.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Fen, I’m sorry. I’ve ruined everything.”

She pulled her hand away .

“It doesn’t matter,” she said again, and then she turned, heading back toward the village.

“How can you say that?” I scrambled after her, trying to glimpse her face as I drew up beside her. “It matters.”

She smiled. It was a small, sad thing, and I couldn’t understand it. Where was her rage? Her ire?

Where was Fenli?

“Fine, it matters.” She looked at me. “But I don’t care anymore, Roan. Don’t worry. I know you meant no harm. You were trying to help.”

I stopped in my tracks, but she kept right on ahead. “Why are you not angry?” I called out over the wind.

She turned and walked backwards, her hair flying around her face, lashing her cheeks. “Anger is exhausting,” she said, “and I’m tired. Will you do me a favor, though?”

“Anything.”

“Don’t hunt the wolves. I couldn’t bear it—you, being a wolf hunter.”

Then she turned back and left me there with nothing but her words.

I wasn’t even sure I’d heard her right. Nothing made sense to me, not her request for me to bow out from the wolf hunt and not her detached reaction to the secret I’d told.

I thought back to the first time I’d met her, how mere moments in her hut had prompted her to hide every scrap of paper and drawing nub from sight.

She’d been desperate to keep her things, keep the private life she’d made for herself. And now, she wasn’t.

She acted like she didn’t care at all.

It would have been better if she had yelled, I realized. I wished she’d raged and fought and swore. What did it mean that she hadn’t?

I glanced at my feet and startled. There, by the tip of my boot, was a long bone. It was the femur of a deer, broken cleanly into two halves.

It signified an ending.

And it was a bad omen.