Den of Wolves Read online

  About Den of Wolves

  Feather bright and feather fine

  None shall harm this child of mine

  Healer Blackthorn knows all too well the rules of her bond to the fey: seek no vengeance, help any who ask, do only good. But after the most recent ordeal she and Grim have suffered, she knows she cannot let go of her quest to bring justice to the man who ruined her life.

  Despite her own struggles, Blackthorn agrees to help Lady Flidais take care of a troubled young girl, Cara, while Grim travels to Cara’s home at Wolf Glen to aid her wealthy father with a strange task – rebuilding a broken-down house deep in the woods. It doesn’t take Grim long to realise that everything in Wolf Glen is not as it seems – the place is full of perilous secrets and deadly lies.

  Back at Winterfalls, the evil touch of Blackthorn’s sworn enemy reopens old wounds and fuels her long-simmering desire for retribution. With danger on two fronts, Blackthorn and Grim are faced with a heartbreaking choice – to stand once again by each other’s side or to fight their battles alone.

  The thrilling and poignant conclusion to the award-winning Blackthorn & Grim trilogy.

  Contents

  Cover

  About Den of Wolves

  Dedication

  Character List

  Chapter One: Bardán

  Chapter Two: Cara

  Chapter Three: Blackthorn

  Chapter Four: Bardán

  Chapter Five: Grim

  Chapter Six: Cara

  Chapter Seven: Blackthorn

  Chapter Eight: Bardán

  Chapter Nine: Grim

  Chapter Ten: Blackthorn

  Chapter Eleven: Bardán

  Chapter Twelve: Grim

  Chapter Thirteen: Cara

  Chapter Fourteen: Bardán

  Chapter Fifteen: Blackthorn

  Chapter Sixteen: Grim

  Chapter Seventeen: Blackthorn

  Chapter Eighteen: Cara

  Chapter Nineteen: Grim

  Chapter Twenty: Cara

  Chapter Twenty-one: Grim

  Chapter Twenty-two: Bardán

  Chapter Twenty-three: Grim

  Chapter Twenty-four: Blackthorn

  Chapter Twenty-five: Cara

  Chapter Twenty-six: Grim

  Chapter Twenty-seven: Blackthorn

  Chapter Twenty-eight: Grim

  Chapter Twenty-nine: Blackthorn

  Chapter Thirty: Cara

  Chapter Thirty-one: Bardán

  Chapter Thirty-two: Blackthorn

  Chapter Thirty-three: Cara

  Chapter Thirty-four: Grim

  Chapter Thirty-five: Blackthorn

  Chapter Thirty-six: Cara

  Chapter Thirty-seven: Blackthorn

  Chapter Thirty-eight: Grim

  Chapter Thirty-nine: Blackthorn

  Chapter Forty: Cara

  Chapter Forty-one: Blackthorn

  Chapter Forty-two: Grim

  Chapter Forty-three: Cara

  Chapter Forty-four: Blackthorn

  Chapter Forty-five: Bardán

  Chapter Forty-six: Grim

  Chapter Forty-seven: Blackthorn

  Chapter Forty-eight: Blackthorn

  Acknowledgments

  About Juliet Marillier

  Also by Juliet Marillier

  Copyright page

  For my grandchildren

  May they grow strong as the oak. May they be flexible as the willow. May they blossom like the hawthorn.

  CHARACTER LIST

  This list includes some characters who are mentioned by name but don’t appear in the story.

  At Wolf Glen

  Cara

  aged fifteen

  Tóla

  her father, landholder at Wolf Glen

  Suanach

  (soo-a-nakh)

  Tóla’s wife, Cara’s mother (deceased)

  Della

  Tóla’s sister, Cara’s aunt

  Alba

  Cara’s personal maid

  Gormán

  chief forester

  Conn

  assistant forester

  Bardán

  (bar-dawn)

  a wild man

  Dáire

  (dah-reh)

  his wife (deceased)

  At Winterfalls

  Blackthorn

  wise woman and healer

  Grim

  her companion

  Cass

  Blackthorn’s husband (deceased)

  Brennan

  Blackthorn’s son (deceased)

  Oran

  prince of Dalriada

  Flidais

  (flid-is)

  his wife

  Aolú

  (ay-loo)

  their son

  Deirdre

  (dee-dra)

  Flidais’s maidservant and companion

  Mhairi

  (mah-ree)

  maidservant

  Nuala

  (noo-la)

  maidservant

  Donagan

  Oran’s body servant and companion

  Aedan

  Oran’s steward

  Fíona

  Aedan’s wife, housekeeper

  Brid

  (breedj)

  cook

  Niall

  farmer

  Eochu

  (okh-oo)

  stable master

  Eoin

  (ohn)

  man-at-arms

  Garalt

  man-at-arms

  Lochlan

  chief man-at-arms

  Emer

  (eh-ver)

  Blackthorn’s young assistant

  Fraoch

  (frech)

  village smith, Emer’s brother

  Scannal

  miller

  Cliona

  sheep farmer

  At Longwater

  Fann

  a local woman

  Osgar

  her brother

  Ross

 
her husband

  Ide

  (ee-deh)

  mother of Fann and Osgar

  Luíseach

  (lee-sakh)

  Ide’s sister-in-law

  Fedach

  Luíseach’s son, aged fifteen

  Eibhlín

  (ev-leen)

  a young woman

  Corcrán

  a young man

  The Swan Island men

  Ségán

  (seh-awn)

  leader of the Swan Island men

  Cúan

  (koo-awn)

  Art

  Earc

  (ark)

  Caolchú

  (kehl-choo)

  Cionnaola

  (ki-neh-la)

  Lonán

  (loh-nawn)

  Others

  Master Saran

  Master Bress

  lawmen

  Mathuin

  chieftain of Laois

  Lorcan

  king of Mide

  Cadhan

  chieftain of White Hill, Flidais’s father

  Branoc

  baker

  Conmael

  a fey nobleman

  Oisin

  (a-sheen)

  a druid

  Brígh

  (bree)

  And not forgetting:

  Ripple

  a well-trained hound

  Bramble

  a bad-tempered terrier

  Sturdy

  a cart horse

  Mercy

  a fine mare

  Willow

  Tóla’s favourite riding horse

  1

  ~Bardán~

  He’s curled in a ball, shivering, under a piercing white moon. He’d forgotten how bright the moon was, how its light could go right through a man, cold in his bones, searching out what was hidden deep. Go away, he breathes, arms up over his head, knees to his chest, trying to be invisible. Leave me alone. But the light seeks him out, finding a way through the high canopy of the beeches, through the rough blanket of bracken and fern he’s scrambled together, through the rags of his clothing, right inside him. Into his mind, tangling his thoughts. Into his heart, probing his wounds. It’s been so long. How long has it been? How long has he been away?

  An owl cries, eerie, hollow. In the undergrowth, something screams. Something dies. Stop, he whispers. Don’t. But nobody’s listening. His words fall into the quiet of the night forest and are lost. He’s lost. The cold moon will kill him before he can find his way. The way back to . . . to . . .

  A fragment comes to him, then it’s gone. Another piece, and another. A story . . . but the meaning slips away before he can grasp it. Shivering body. Clattering teeth. A man . . . A man building . . . A man making a house, a strange house . . . He can feel the wood under his hands, his crooked hands . . . Long ago, so long ago . . . Was there a rhyme for the building, a charm, a spell? Crooked hands. Crooked yew. He makes the words with his lips, but there is no sound. Blackthorn, ivy and crooked yew.

  He can’t remember much. But what he remembers is enough, for now. Enough to keep his heart beating; enough to keep him breathing through the cold night, until morning. The beech tree will shelter him; she will spread her strong arms over him, shutting out the chill eye of the moon. And when the sun rises and the long night is over, he knows where he will go.

  2

  ~Cara~

  The forest knew everything. News passed on a breath of wind, in the call of an owl, in the small pattern of a squirrel’s paw prints. The trout in the stream learned it. The lark soaring high above saw it. The knowledge was in the hearts of the trees and in the mysterious rustling of their leaves. It was a deep-down wisdom, as solemn as a druid’s prayer.

  She never talked about it. Not with Father, not with Aunt Della, not even with Gormán. She’d learned long ago that if she spoke of that great knowledge people thought she was being foolish or fanciful. That didn’t matter. What mattered was saying it to the trees, over and over, so they knew she was their friend and guardian and could hear their slow voices. She spoke to each of them in turn, in a whisper, with her body against the trunk and her cheek pressed to the bark, as if she and the tree shared the same beating heart. Rough oak, smooth willow, furrowed ash, every tree in the wood. I will protect you. I will guard you. I give you my word.

  The promise wasn’t foolish or fanciful. It made perfect sense. One day the holding at Wolf Glen would be hers to watch over. Mother was dead. Father would never marry again. There was nobody else to inherit the house, the farm, the forest. All of it, and all the folk who lived and worked there, would be hers to care for, hers to look after.

  Father didn’t talk about the future, even now Cara was in her sixteenth year. But she knew he expected her to marry someday and produce an heir. She let herself dream, sometimes, about what might have been if she had not been a girl and the only child. She could have become a master wood carver. She could have spent all day making creatures and chests and chairs with fine decoration, toys for children, platters to hold fruit, spindles and cradles and walking staves with owls on them. Or she could have been a forester like Gormán. Gormán had been her friend since almost before she could walk. He had taught her the properties of different woods. Sometimes she would open up her special storage chest and get out the collection of little animals she’d made over the years. She loved them all, from the rabbit she had crafted from pine at six years old to the owl she’d coaxed not long ago from a well-weathered block of oak. The owl had its wings lifted ready for flight, and when Cara looked at it she imagined spreading wings of her own and flying off over the treetops, wild and free. When she had held each of her little creatures in turn, stroked each, spoken softly to each, she would shut them away in the chest again.

  Soon, she knew, Father would start looking for a prospective husband for her. Father and Aunt Della had set their expectations high, hoping for a chieftain’s son. But wouldn’t that mean she would have to leave Wolf Glen? That could not happen. She would be like a sapling pulled up roughly, roots and all, then shoved into barren ground where it could not thrive. She would turn into a dull shadow of a woman whom nobody could possibly want as a wife. And who would look after the forest if she was not here? Her father loved Wolf Glen as she did, but his love was tinged with a darkness she did not understand.

  Some girls were already wed at fifteen. Some were mothers. But that was not possible for her. It was unthinkable. If she married, how would she have time for any of the things that mattered? There would be no time to hear the many voices of the forest, no time to watch the patterns of leaves and light, no time to breathe the crisp air, no time to feel the weight of a fine piece of wood in her hands, seeing in her mind the forms that lay within. What if the husband her father chose for her did not understand these things? What if she tried to talk to him and her words suddenly vanished, the way
they did sometimes when she was talking to Father or Aunt Della? The suitor would think her a half-wit, and Father would be furious, and that would make it even more impossible to get words out.

  Perhaps she could refuse to wed unless the man loved the same things she loved. Somewhere, surely, there must be at least one other person like her. If she could summon the right words, maybe she could persuade Father to wait awhile. Some women married and had babies when they were quite old, twenty or even five-and-twenty. Her maid Alba had told her so. There was plenty of time. Years.

  Or so she thought, up till the day the wild man came to Wolf Glen, and everything changed.

  She’d been out by the barn, showing Gormán a drawing she’d made for a carving of a squirrel. He’d promised to look out for the right piece of wood but warned her it might take some time to find it. ‘Off you go, then,’ he’d said in his gruff way. ‘I’ve my big axe to sharpen, and I don’t want you anywhere near while I’m doing it, young lady.’