Chapter 8: Ronan's POV

Ronan's POV

I woke before dawn with her hair across my arm.

She had fallen asleep on the rug beside the hearth.

I had not moved her, because I could not think of a way to do it that did not count as touching.

So I sat against the bed and watched the fire burn down, and told myself I was keeping guard.

I was not keeping guard.

I was counting her breaths.

When the sky went grey over the sea, I got up quietly and climbed to the roof of the Wolf Tower.

Cold wind came off the water.

From up there, I could see the whole black city and, beyond it, the northern ridge.

Fires burned along the ridge, a long dotted line of them, and every one was a wolf.

My sister had brought the packs down in the dark.

She was a day early.

She was angry, and I could feel it through the bond we shared as brother and sister.

It came as a hot, prickling thread of we are coming.

I closed my eyes and sent back a single word:

Wait.

I had been in the Court's cell for four years.

My sister had spent every one of them restraining a pack that wanted to burn the capital to the ground.

I was not sure how much longer she could hold them.

I was not sure how much longer I wanted her to.

The wind pulled at my coat.

Under my left ribs, the old ache woke up, exactly where it always did.

It was not a wound.

It had never been a wound.

It was a tug.

It had started three years ago.

I had been asleep in the cell when it hit me, a bright, sick pull.

I woke gasping and with my hand pressed to my side, and there was no wound at all.

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