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Chapter Forty

Roan

B aer had told me to go home, but I’d stood in this alley before and made the mistake of letting him walk away from me. I wouldn’t do it now. He would listen. And, as it turned out, so would the two clans.

I followed him into the assembly. Shouldering my way to the front, I listened as they began their talks, a thin man from Runehall’s clan laying down the terms they wished our elders to agree to.

“We do not accept,” I said aloud, cutting him off in the middle of his bit on what they expected to be sent along with her. “Toke’s clan respectfully declines. Fenli stays with us.”

The man’s eyes narrowed on me as a murmur ran through the hall. He scowled and turned his head to Baer.

“Is this the boy?” he asked.

My father nodded once, and my attention shifted to him. I had disobeyed him. He’d dismissed me like I was still a child, and he was still towering over me.

But I wasn’t a child any longer, and I hadn’t had to tip my head back to meet his gaze in years.

I tightened my jaw and looked my old man dead in his face.

“We don’t accept,” I said again .

Everyone watched silently as the two of us stared each other down. The moment was heavy with tension. I was no fool. I knew the hell I was tempting.

And it was about damn time I tempted it.

I raised my voice louder. “The elders have done enough damage in Fenli’s life, and yet here you all are, sitting around discussing her future as if it were yours to decide.

And where is she? She wasn’t even invited.

The problem has never been that she won’t speak.

It has always been that we don’t listen. ”

Someone said, “She was just a child when—”

“She is not a child any longer.” I spun a full circle, meeting as many eyes as I could.

“She is not. Whatever reasons you had in the past are obsolete now. You’re lying to yourselves if you think this is about helping her, about finding the best option for her amongst yourselves.

This is about control . It’s about a hut full of old men refusing to give a young woman what’s hers.

It’s about puffing yourselves up and keeping her small.

Are we so insecure, brothers? What exactly is it we’re afraid of?

“I know what it is. We’re afraid of her strength. I’ve seen it. Been leveled by it a time or two. Fen would cut my throat soon as kiss me, and she has me so wrapped around her finger I wouldn’t know which one I was in for until I was good and kissed or dead.

“That’s why we’re afraid. Of Fen. Of Esska. Of Helva! Of any woman who tries to make space for herself in our clans. We want the space for ourselves. It’s our weakness under the guise of strength.”

There was a hum at the mention of Helva’s name, hushed explanations being given by those who were old enough to know to those who were not.

Then the room fell quiet, and I stood alone in the middle of the silence.

No one spoke up with excuses. No one moved to agree or disagree.

It was what I’d been afraid of for so long.

And it was—fine. I found I didn’t care. I was finally telling the clan what I thought.

No amount of backlash could undermine what I was gaining in getting the truth out in the open.

I turned towards the elder from Runehall’s clan. “You won’t take her if she doesn’t want to go.” I turned toward my father and the other elders from our clan. “And you’ll let her out of this marriage.”

“It’s not that simple,” one of them started.

“Then it will cause you a lot of grief until it’s done. I don’t care. But she doesn’t suffer any more for the sake of your comfort and ease. She can get some peace of mind for once, while you all wrestle with the problems you’ve made.”

I turned back to Baer. “I’m going to find her, and I’m going to tell her all of this. Do I have your blessing, or is this going to be a battle of wills? Because I’m willing to go to war for her.”

He ground his teeth and considered his reply.

“I see that you are,” he finally said. “Strange, because it’s obvious you love her. I thought you’d want her to remain your wife.”

“If that’s what you think, then you don’t know what love is.”

His eyes narrowed on me. There was a cool silence between us for many moments.

“He’s right,” I heard Jory say from behind me.

I turned back, as did most of the men gathered, to find him standing near the back.

“Everything he said. Our clans have mucked this situation up from the beginning, and it’s time we all step back and give Fenli the choices she should have had from the start.

We are not better than this, and we never have been.

” He looked at those around him, then up to where the elders sat.

“But we could be. We could be better. I think it’s time we start. ”

“Aye,” said another, and soon there was a small chorus of them, a few brothers of mine who agreed and stood behind me.

I didn’t want to show it, but inside a wave of relief was sweeping over me.

I’d have been hard pressed to sway the elders in Fenli’s favor if I had no supporters, despite my boldness.

“Well, I disagree.”

I knew who it was before I’d even turned to face him.

When we were eye to eye, he said, “Nice to see you finally acting like a man, Faasval.”

“Thass.”

“She doesn’t belong here,” he said, and it made me wonder.

He’d been one of the ones who’d brought me stories about her. He’d spoken well of her, laughed as he’d told me all the trouble she was causing, never said an ill word of her. Not once.

Now he stood before an assembly, passionate about sending her away.

What would cause such a change of heart?

So Fenli was a troublemaker. None of the other young hunters cared.

It was the old men who held so fast to the old ways you’d think tradition was the only thing getting them hard at night.

Why had Thaas taken up this cause? What had happened between him and Fen?

Fenli had said he didn’t like her. I was starting to suspect that wasn’t the truth.

“She’s never belonged here,” he went on. “If you had some space, brother, I think you’d see it. Let her go back with her clan. In time, she will see that it’s what she needs.”

“What she needs, brother , is for her own people to support her.”

He shrugged. “They will.”

“ We will. ”

He had the nerve to laugh and shake his head. “You’re as stubborn as her. It’s probably why the two of you are forever at each other’s throats. Can’t you see she’s wrong for you?”

I tried to cross the space between us, but others stepped in my path, their hands on my shoulders. “You wish,” I said. “Rejection’s a bitch, isn’t it Thaas? Tell us why you really want her gone so badly.”

His jaw tightened and every muscle in him seemed to go still. I’d guessed right, I realized. He’d tried something. He must have. And Fenli had rejected him.

“She’s a nuisance,” he said.

“She’s too good for you, and it eats you up inside.”

He glared at me, biting back whatever he thought in favor of his icy silence. Then he turned to the elders. “She’s in the west hut,” he told them. “Let’s put this decision to rest while we have her and before she bolts again.”

“She’s where?” but he ignored me.

“Toke’s clan has tried and fallen short where she is concerned.

She’s unhappy, she sneaks off, tampers with our maps, and disregards authority at every opportunity.

Why? Because she was never meant to be here in the first place.

She isn’t a child of Toke’s, and this clan could never be an adequate home for her.

I say we vote, and we put her back with the clan she was meant for.

Once she’s settled among her own people, I think she’ll find that she’s happier as well.

She’s Runehall’s. We’ve tried. But it’s time to give her back. ”

“Bastard,” I said, pushing past the others. “You think a speech like that gives you the right to hurt her? You’re sore because she never felt the same way for you that you did for her, and now you want to make her pay.”

I shoved him in the chest, and he stumbled .

With his feet back under him, he said, “No one in their right mind would want that stupid bitch.”

I swung, but he was ready for me. He blocked my punch and drove his fist up into my stomach.

I blinked in surprise and coughed the air back into my lungs.

I had attacked in a rage and without thinking.

Now I saw this for what it was. We were going to finish the fight we started back in the old village.

Only this time, there was something at stake.

I caught my breath and straightened. I needed a level head. I needed to focus.

“You don’t want to do this, Faasval,” Thaas said. “Remember last time? It didn’t work out for you so well. And your emotions are running high.”

I widened my stance.

“Shut up and fight me.”

I swung and he ducked under my fist. This time my head was in it, and I blocked the next punch he tried to land. I advanced on him as he took steps back, unwilling to let him get away from me.

We traded blows. Thaas was quick on his feet with a damning cross, and I couldn’t let my guard down for a moment without him taking advantage of it.

This was not a half-hearted spar, and I felt myself rising to the challenge.

Everything I had, I threw at him. Finally, I caught him in the jaw, his teeth cracking together and head snapping back.

There was a murmur that moved through the room.

After he blinked a few times, Thaas looked at me, and it was with hell in his eyes.

He rushed me. I blocked the first two punches he threw, but the third bashed me in the ear, making my head spin.

The next thing I knew, he had his shoulder in my hips, tackling me to the ground.

We were brawling. He had the higher ground, and he was quick to take his advantage.

He pummeled me in the face like we were a pair of boys.

With my forearms taking the battering, I shook off the hit he’d gotten on me and pulled my thoughts back together.

Then I bucked him off and spun, launching my foot at his wrist and sending him crashing to his elbows.

“Careful, Thaas,” I said, jumping to my feet. He was quick to follow. “Your emotions are running high.”

He swung twice. I dodged the first and blocked the next, then smoked him in the cheek for everything I was worth.

He staggered back. I watched as his eyes lost focus, and he blinked. After a moment on his feet, he crumpled to the floorboards.

“That was for Fen,” I said.

Then I turned and ran out the door to find her.