Chapter 31: Names for Two

The rope that moved belonged to the big man's wife.

Torin drove me to the Black Fir west barracks at first light, with the bite still raw on my shoulder.

His mark was on me.

Mine was on him.

I could feel him in the truck beside me, steady and quiet, with his hands on the wheel and nowhere else.

The big man met us at the barracks door.

He had not slept.

"She moved," he said. "She said my name."

I followed him into a narrow room with a high window.

His wife lay under a quilt, grey and thin, with her eyes open and clouded.

I sat on the edge of the bed and took her hand.

"I'm Morven," I said. "I've been carrying part of you for nine days."

Her eyes slid to mine.

"I know," she whispered. "I felt it. It was warm."

"Do you want it back?"

She looked at her husband.

He nodded, with tears running into his collar.

"Yes," she said. "Say my wolf's name."

She told it to me, slow and cracked.

I closed my eyes and found the last thin rope in my chest.

I said the name aloud, and put the rope in her hand.

It left me with a small, clean pain.

Her back bowed off the pillow.

When she lay down again, her eyes were clear and gold, and she was crying and laughing at once.

"There you are," she said, to herself. "There you are."

Her husband put his face into her neck.

I stood up and my knees held.

Nothing at all was left in my chest but me.

"Is that all of it?" Torin asked, from the doorway.

"That's all of it," said Ember. "No ropes. No root. Just us."

She sounded happy.

I had never heard her happy before.

At noon, both packs stood on the bridge.

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