This wasn’t going as he’d hoped.
Eventually, Dolph cleared his throat. “You shouldn’t even be considering helping them. You’re needed here.”
Am I?
He wasn’t sure his brother believed that. Both Lyall and Dolph were happier at Dulross than he was. Beathan encouraged them to expand their territory further—pushed them to want more than Doure and Dulross. But Alar was tired of it all.
He’d recently begun to realize that it would never be enough. He wanted no part of it.
He didn’t say as much to his companions though, for he didn’t like the way all three of them were eying him now: likehewas a problem. One they weren’t sure how to solve.
As a rule, Beathan got on better with Alar than he did with Lyall and Dolph. Like many Marav, he’d once scorned wulvers. Although he’d swallowed his prejudices to side with them, he still wasn’t that comfortable with Alar’s captains. Things were better here between the two races than they’d ever been in Duncrag, yet over the past turn of the moon, Alar noticed cracks appearing.
Beathan’s jibes about the stink of frying and smoking fish had started to wear thin. The chieftain often disregarded Lyall’s opinions at meetings, always asking Alar for his thoughts instead. This evening was the first time in a while he’d actively sided with either of them.
If anything, Alar’s absence would likely unite them.
They were all wary of what he might do next. He needed to tread carefully.
“I shall sleep on it then,” he said, moving over to the table where Eithne had been standing earlier, and replacing his empty cup.
“There’s nothing to sleep on,” Beathan growled out. “Ready yourself, Half-blood … and be at the gates with your wulvers before dawn.”
12: CHOOSING A SIDE
ALAR LEFT THE alcove, his pulse thumping in his ears.
No one told him what to do—least of all the Circines chieftain. They were equals here.
However, he let the dog’s pizzle have the last word, let the three of them think they’d won. Lyall and Dolph made no move to leave with him. Instead, they stayed with Beathan. It was a silent yet powerful gesture.
They’d chosen a side. But he’d chosen his.
He wasn’t killing Lara, or Mor.
He was going. Tonight.
Out on the landing, he nearly collided with Duana and Eithne. The two women had been waiting there, listening in on their argument through the curtain. The lasses reeled back at his sudden appearance, panic flaring in their eyes.
Acting on instinct, Alar raised a finger to his lips, warning them to be silent. He then jerked his chin toward the stairwell, indicating for them to follow him into it.
Faces taut, the sisters obeyed, even as fear vibrated off them.
They still expected him to turn on them.
Unlike Beathan, he hadn’t touched either lass in his year at Dulross, nor had he mistreated them. It didn’t matter though; they likely hated him as much as they did the chieftain. He’d led the force that had taken this fort, and his wulvers had killed their parents. He’d also let the chieftain and his captain claim them, and he’d been present while they groped the women, humiliated them.
He hadn’t stopped the abusethen—for doing so would have broken things between him and Beathan—but he would now.
“We’re leaving Dulross,” he whispered as they made their way down the winding stairwell, within the cavity between two thick stacked-stone walls, which circled down from the top floor of the broch to the entrance hall. Cressets guttered as Alar quickened his pace.
There wasn’t a moment to lose.
“What?” Duana hissed back. “Now?”
“Aye.”
“They’ll stop us.”
